Shattered
by Swing Girl At Heart
Summary: When a tragic act of violence strikes McKinley High, the Glee members must find ways to cope with the aftermath of the incident. Ensemble piece.
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter One_

_"Who breaks the thread? The one who pulls? Or the one who holds on?"_

When Puck came to, his ears were ringing. He groaned and put his hand to his head, frowning when he pulled it back to discover sticky red covering his fingertips. Gently, he prodded the top of his head, wincing when it stung on his crown. He staggered to his feet, still deaf as he used the lockers next to him to hoist himself upwards. Blinking and trying to shake the blurriness from his eyes, he leaned back against the lockers and tried to remember what had happened. He looked down the empty hall, and froze when he saw a crumpled form against the door to the chemistry lab. With his vision still impaired, he couldn't tell who it was, but the sight was enough to make his heart skip several beats.

A muffled sound somehow registered in his head. He turned to where he thought it was coming from and saw Rachel standing a few feet away, her makeup horrendously smudged. She'd been crying. Her mouth moved, but he couldn't understand what she was saying. He was more focused on the fact that she looked shell-shocked, and her hands were trembling. Her hands… Oh, God. They were covered in blood. A _lot_ of blood. It was smeared across her usually-perfect clothes, too, and a few small blotches of it dotted her cheeks and forehead.

Her attention suddenly shifted in the opposite direction; Puck heard shouts, deadened as if they were coming from underwater, and saw several EMTs striding their way. As two of the EMTs approached them, Puck couldn't help but watch as the others knelt over the lifeless figure on the floor, poking and prodding and finally covering it with a white sheet.

Somebody's fingers snapped in front of his nose to get his attention. An EMT was regarding him with a professionally expectant look. "_Ah oo urr?_" the medic asked.

He shook his head and gestured to his ear.

"_Oo can eer?_"

Another shake.

The medic nodded and he and his colleague guided Puck and Rachel towards the front door with steady, trained hands. As they passed the chemistry lab, Puck involuntarily glanced at the body on the floor. From beneath the sheet, a limp hand protruded, the nails painted black, and he caught a glimpse of splayed black hair streaked with blue.

Abruptly, Puck buckled in two against the nearest wall, violently emptying the contents of his stomach. The EMT stood beside him, a hand on his back, talking calmly though he knew Puck couldn't really hear him. Once Puck was finished, he was escorted outside, where the sun blinded him. Unable to see where he was going or where Rachel went, he just followed the EMT's lead, until he found himself sitting (thankfully in the shade) on the back bumper of an ambulance. The medic flashed a penlight over his eyes, checked his pulse, and then set about patching up the gash on his head.

As his eyes slowly adjusted to the light, Puck looked around the parking lot – there were flashing lights on at least every other vehicle present; ambulances, cop cars, even a fire truck, all crowded the lot while EMTs, policemen, and faculty and students ran about, the latter two categories looking scared out of their wits. He couldn't see Rachel anywhere, but he hoped that she was just going through the same patch-up process that he was going through now. Whatever was going on, it was bad. Like, national news level bad.

"You feeling okay, buddy?" the EMT asked, his voice finally clear enough to understand.

"What happened?" Puck asked, trying not to flinch as the antibacterial solution stung his scalp.

"What do you remember?"

"Uh…not – not much," Puck stammered, the image of the body (he refused to give it a name) looming large in his head. "There, uh… there was screamin', and then, uh, I heard – I heard shots," he said slowly. He stopped short; the flashing lights, the body, the blood…it was all adding up now. "No," he muttered, shaking his head. This wasn't supposed to happen. This didn't happen. Not in Lima.

"Well, you hit your head pretty good when you fell," the EMT stated, his voice oddly lighthearted, which made Puck angry. Nobody was supposed to be lighthearted when there was a body lying in the hallway of the local high school. "I'm guessing you tripped or something in the stampede."

The EMT's last phrase brought back the memories in a rush of color and erratic sounds. The screaming, the gunshots, the thundering of hundreds of feet pushing and fighting to get out of the school first. He'd been trying to see Quinn over the river of heads when more shots rang out and he stumbled, sucked under the current and run into the wall practically head first, and then everything went black. "Oh, Jesus," he said, burying his face in his hands.

"It's all right," the EMT said.

Puck shook his head. "No. No, it's not." Before the medic could respond to that, Puck sat straight again and asked, "Is Rachel okay?"

"Who, your friend?"

"Yeah, she was bleedin' a lot; she gonna be all right?"

"Oh, yeah, bit stunned, but she's fine. It wasn't her blood."

Puck fought the urge to vomit again as the medic finished taping the gauze over his head wound. "How many?"

"Hm? How many what?"

"How many people?" Puck asked, not sure if he wanted to know.

"Well, that's what they're trying to figure out now. You, however, need to go home and get plenty of rest. Call your parents, tell them you've got a minor concussion and that they need to come pick you up; you're in no condition to drive."

"I don't have a car," Puck said, as if this detail mattered. "I'll walk." He was striding away before the medic had a chance to protest. Scanning the crowds of people, he finally saw Rachel standing next to a cop car, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. "Berry?" he said as he approached her. "You okay?"

"Oh, Noah," she said, her lip trembling. Before Puck knew what was happening, she'd thrown herself into his embrace, clutching at his dirtied shirt as if it were a lifeline and sobbing uncontrollably into his chest. "How could this happen?" she cried between gasps for air.

"I don't know," he said quietly. "They, uh…they said it's not your blood you're covered in… Whose is it?" Puck swallowed, bracing himself for the answer, but Rachel didn't speak, only sobbing harder. His shirt was getting wet.

"Berry?" he said, unsure of what to do. He wasn't good with crying girls, especially when he was as freaked out as they were. "Berry, whose is it?"

"Oh, Noah," she said again.

"Rachel…" he started, hoping that using her first name might have a better effect. "Tell me."

She didn't answer for almost a full minute. By this time, her sobs had faded to exhausted and breathy hiccups, but she still hadn't moved. Finally, she leaned back onto her own two feet instead of using him for support. Puck shifted from one foot to the other; her waterworks were making him extremely uncomfortable. "Noah, I was…" she began, her voice startlingly quiet and punctuated by hiccups. Where was the loud, annoying voice that made him want to light himself on fire most days? "I-I was talking to F-Finn when it happened, and we…we hid in the rehearsal room…" She stopped to hastily wipe away a fresh stream of tears. Puck didn't like where this was going; he could feel his heart rate picking up. "B-but he came in anyways…" Rachel's voice grew a little more hysterical here, and she hugged her arms around her as tightly as she could as she tried to get the words out between gasps. "He…he just opened the door, and I couldn't _do_ anything – we couldn't do anything… Oh, God. He-he-he just pulled the trigger and left, like-like nothing had happened… and Finn f-fell down, and—" She stopped, unable to go on, her voice choked off.

Puck stared at her in disbelief for several seconds. "Finn's…dead?" he asked, not realizing that his voice shook a little.

"I-I don't know," Rachel whispered, shaking her head and hiding her face, her shoulders heaving. "I th-think so."

"Oh, Jesus," Puck breathed. He could feel his lungs constricting as Rachel collapsed onto his chest again, and he did the only thing he knew to do. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, resting his chin on the top of her head and for once in his life, not caring if he looked like a sissy.

* * *

**A/N: ** So I actually wasn't sure if this was really an okay thing to write about. If there's a huge negative reaction, I'll take it down right away, but please let me know what you think. At the start of each chapter, there is one line from James Richarson's poem titled _Vectors: Thirty-Six Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays._


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

_"Our lives get complicated because complexity is so much simpler than simplicity."  
_

For the second time that day, Puck woke with a start and for a second or two couldn't remember where he was. Looking around, he realized he was in Rachel's living room, sitting on her couch with Rachel herself asleep on his shoulder. Puck recalled that he'd walked into the kitchen just after they got there to find her at the sink, frantically scrubbing the red off her hands and forearms, almost roughly enough to scrape the skin clear off her body. Now, she was garbed in sweatpants and a tank top, having tossed the bloodstained outfit in the dumpster outside.

Puck rubbed his eyes sleepily; he didn't really recall the dialogue that had led to him ending up at her house, but he was surprised to find that he didn't mind nearly as much as he would have a week ago or the day before. Sighing, he debated whether or not to get up and disturb Rachel, and resigned to turning on the television, keeping the volume down.

Surfing through a couple channels, he stumbled across the local news, where it showed an Asian woman with a microphone standing outside of McKinley, police tape criss-crossing the area behind her. He sat up a little, upping the volume a few notches, and watched intently, his heart speeding up again.

"I'm here at William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio, where just this morning before classes began, Wayne Parker, a sophomore student who was recently diagnosed with severe anxiety disorder, brought a gun into the school and unleashed several rounds upon his teachers and fellow students before committing suicide. As of right now, there have been six casualties, all students, and eleven injuries, making this the worst school shooting in Ohio history. The shootings took place at around eight-forty-five this morning, and Parker shot himself about ten minutes after 911 dispatch arrived on the scene. The eight students and three staff members who were wounded are all currently recovering in intensive care, and seven more students have been taken to the hospital for injuries received from the subsequent panic. The identified victims' names have yet to be released. For Channel Four News, I'm Stacy Chang."

Puck shut the TV off when he noticed that Rachel had woken up and was watching over his shoulder with a deadpan gaze. "Y'okay, Berry?"

She let out a long breath, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "I don't know."

"I didn't mean to wake you up," he said.

"You didn't," she lied, standing up. "Are you hungry?" she asked.

"No."

"Me neither. I feel like I'm not going to be hungry for a long time."

"Same here."

In the next room, the phone rang and Rachel went to answer it. While she was gone, Puck glanced at the front of his shit; there were a few spots of blood from his injury, and he idly scratched around the gauze taped to his scalp. Wayne Parker… he ran the name over and over in his head until he remembered who the kid was. He and a couple of the football guys had shoved Wayne into a locker last week. Puck fought another round of nausea as the thought struck him that he might have had something to do with the kid's breakdown. His brain went through a rapid montage of every person he'd ever bullied suddenly turning to pull a gun on him, and he felt his chest constrict again.

Rachel re-entered the room, saying, "That was Mercedes," she said. "She says that she's glad you're okay, and she's made contact with Matt, Brittany, Mike, and Quinn. She doesn't know where the others are."

Relief washed over Puck when he heard that Quinn was all right. "Did you tell her?" he asked.

"No, I…I couldn't," she replied softly, battling tears again. "I…I feel like saying it would make it real."

Puck nodded in understanding, pulling himself to his feet and stretching. "I think I'd better go…"

"Do you have to?" Rachel asked. She sounded hurt.

"Uh, yeah, my…my mom doesn't know—"

"Oh. Of course," she said, lacing her hands humbly behind her back. "I apologize, I just don't want to be alone, I guess."

Puck put his hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze of comfort. "I'll see you later, Berry."

Walking home, Puck couldn't shake the chills running up and down his spine, though he told himself it was just because of the late autumn wind. Hunching his shoulders and shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his football blazer, he disappeared into his thoughts, letting his body switch to autopilot. He tried not to think about the body in the hallway or where Finn might be, and he tried not to picture any of his other friends in similar positions, but somehow the images relentlessly continued to surface. Growling under his breath, he smacked the side of his head twice with his hand, thinking for some unfathomable reason that the action might have an effect.

"Puck?" a voice called from behind him. "Puck!"

He hunched his shoulders further and kept walking. He didn't want to talk to anybody right now; he just needed a minute to clear his head.

"Puck!" the voice said again, this time practically in his ear.

"_What_?" he snapped, turning to see Kurt jump back in shock. "Oh. Kurt. You should call Mercedes; she's freakin' out about you."

Kurt frowned. "Why?"

Puck stared at him for a second. "You don't know?"

"Know what? What happened to your head?"

"Ah, shit," Puck muttered, running a hand over his scalp in agitation. He had no idea how to break the news that a kid had mowed down six people at his school. "Why weren't you at school today?" he asked.

Kurt shrugged, still regarding him with apprehension. "I decided to play hooky today," he explained simply. "Why? Does it matter?"

Puck laughed heartlessly. "God damn it, Kurt, you picked the best day to play hooky."

"Puck, you're really starting to scare me. What's going on?"

Rubbing his bandaged scalp in discomfort, the mohawked boy dropped into a sitting position on the curb, cradling his head in his hands like he'd done so often already that day. The scuffling sounds to his left told him that Kurt was sitting beside him. "I…I dunno how I'm supposed to put this," Puck stated, his voice deadened.

"Start at the beginning," Kurt suggested.

Puck frowned, watching the light flow of suburban traffic go by. He wasn't sure what the beginning of the whole fiasco was. The shots? The moment that Wayne Parker had laid his hands on his dad's gun? Had it been when Wayne first started to get bullied? Had it been when Puck helped?

He let out a weighted huff of breath, wringing his hands and resting his elbows on his knees as he tried to figure out what to say. "This–this kid…" he began. "He brought a gun to school, and just…just started shootin' people. I don't remember much, I got hit in the head pretty early on."

Kurt was staring at him with a look that was part horror, part sick, part guilt, and part disbelief. "Is…everyone okay?" he asked after a moment of stunned silence.

Puck gritted his teeth, shaking his head. "No," he said. "No."

"Oh, my God," he heard Kurt whisper. "Who?"

Letting out a breathy, empty sigh, Puck shook his head. "All I know is that Finn's hurt bad, maybe worse," he said, choosing not to mention the body in the hallway. "Rachel's okay; I don't know where anyone else is. You should call Mercedes – she really is worried about you." Clearing his throat awkwardly, Puck hauled himself to his feet, then gave Kurt a hand up. "I…I'm glad you're okay, Kurt," he said before turning and striding in the opposite direction.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter Three_

_"All stones are broken stones."  
_

Mercedes was hysterical. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably and she sat on the sidewalk, as near to the entrance of the school as she dared. Only two hours previously, she had been talking to Mr. Schuester about her low grade in Spanish. Now, her C- was the last thing from her mind. Clutching her arms to her torso, she rocked back and forth slightly, attempting and failing to fill her lungs. She gritted her teeth against another surfacing round of sobs, succeeding in only silently releasing the tears that were welling in her eyes.

She looked up when someone said her name. Matt and Mike stood in front of her, looking like lost puppies. Matt had a scrape across his cheek from his nose to his ear. "Are you all right?" he asked. Wordlessly, she nodded. "Do…do you need a ride?" he offered. She shook her head. Her dad was on his way. The next time she looked up, the two of them were gone.

A shout of "_Coming through!_" cut through the din, and a gurney was rushed past her, a tall and broad-shouldered boy in a football blazer strapped on top with his feet dangling off the end. An oxygen cup was pressed over his nose and mouth, his face pale, and his eyes were dull and half-open, his jacket stained with enormous blotches of dark red. "Finn?" Mercedes said, lurching to her feet and following the gurney as fast as her feet would carry her.

"One, two, three!" a medic counted. On three, the EMTs heaved and lifted him into the back of the nearest ambulance. Mercedes watched in shock as two of the medics rushed off with the gurney to find some other injured person and the other two stayed behind to tend to Finn. "His pulse is slowing," one of them said with a warning tone, keeping her fingers on the side of his throat. "Damn it, he's crashing, get me V-fib, stat!" she ordered as her partner slammed the ambulance doors shut. The last thing Mercedes heard before they closed was the EMT speaking urgently to Finn. "Don't fall asleep on me, kiddo. Don't you _dare_ close your eyes!"

The vehicle worked its way out of the crowded parking lot and drove off down the road at top speed, sirens wailing, leaving Mercedes standing alone and lost. She didn't know what she could do or say or who to go to. Everyone she came across was either busy or just as confused as her. After all, who could you turn to when you had no idea if your friends were alive or dead?

Mercedes was so dizzy with the rush of events that at first she didn't notice when someone tapped her on the shoulder. "Mer-Mercedes?" asked a trembling voice. She turned to see Brittany, looking just as lost, if not more so. "Have…have you seen Santana?"

The innocence in Brittany's tone was enough to break Mercedes' heart. "No, I'm sorry," she said, hiccupping and fighting yet another stream of tears.

The cheerleader simply gave an upset nod and wandered off in search of her friend. Mercedes headed back toward the sidewalk; she had to sit down. The dizziness was getting worse, and she was battling a heavy wave of nausea to boot. Where was her dad?

She jumped when her phone, forgotten in her back pocket, buzzed. Pulling it out, she glanced at the screen and rushed to answer it. "Quinn? Oh, my God, are you okay?"

"_Mercedes! Thank God, I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone else,_" Quinn's voice sounded on the other end. "_Finn's not picking up and I can't find him. Have you seen him?_"

Mercedes wiped her eyes, pausing before she answered. "…No,"she lied. It hurt to lie to Quinn, but it was somehow impossible to admit Finn's current situation. "Who else have you tried to call?" she managed to ask.

"_Everybody! All the Cheerios, all the Glee kids; I even tried to call Ms. Sylvester! Nobody's answering!_" Quinn cried, her voice rising in pitch.

"I just saw Brittany," Mercedes told her. "She's fine, and so are Matt and Mike, but I haven't been able to find anyone else either. Did you try anyone's home numbers?"

"_The only home numbers I have are Finn's and Puck's, and neither of them are there,_" Quinn answered tearfully. "_God, Mercedes, what are we going to do?_"

Mercedes took a long breath in an attempt to steady her nerves; she always responded to problems better when someone was looking to her for answers. "Where are you now?"

Quinn sniffled. "_I'm still at school. I can't call my parents._"

"Meet me by the front entrance, okay? You're coming home with me," Mercedes said, not waiting for Quinn to question her on the decision. "I'm going to call some more people." Hanging up, she immediately dialed Kurt's home number, followed by Artie's, and then Rachel's. Rachel was the only person to answer.

"_Hello?_" She sounded exhausted.

"Rachel! It's Mercedes."

"_Oh, my God, are you okay?_"

"Yeah, I'm fine, are you?"

"_Yes, I'm all right. I think. Puck is here, too; he got hit in the head but he's okay._"

"Thank God," Mercedes said. "Quinn's losing it; I'll tell her he's all right."

"_Quinn? Is she hurt?_"

"No, she's fine. So are Mike, Matt, and Brittany. I can't find anyone else; no one's answering their phones."

"_That's not surprising,_" Rachel stated, her voice deadpanned. "_It's already all over the news._"

"What are they saying?" Mercedes asked, her voice picking up hopefully.

There was a pause on the other end, then a quiet sigh. "_Six people,_" she said, and Mercedes' heart leapt into her throat. "_They haven't said who yet._"

"Oh, God," Mercedes breathed, rubbing her forehead. Looking up, she saw Quinn working her way through the mess of emergency vehicles and running people towards her. "Rachel, I gotta go. Tell Puck I'm glad he's okay."

"_I will,_" Rachel promised. "_Take care of Quinn. And yourself. If I find out anything else, you'll be the first to know. Goodbye, Mercedes._"

Mercedes hung up the phone just as Quinn walked up. "That was Rachel," she said. "She says Puck's okay; he's with her. You all right?"

Quinn hugged her arms around her body, protecting her baby bump. "I…I don't know. I f-fell down," she said, her eyes growing watery.

Mercedes drew the cheerleader into a hug made awkward by Quinn's protruding stomach. "The baby's gonna be fine," she said softly. "Right now, all we gotta do is wait for my dad, then we can get out of here. All right?"

Tearfully, Quinn nodded.

"Quinn, why can't you call your Mom and Dad?"

The look that Quinn gave her was not murderous, like it would have been any other day, but instead was a mixture of sadness and complete and utter fear. "They kicked me out of the house, remember?" she said, trying and failing to maintain her usual biting tone.

"You don't think that after something like this—?"

Quinn hastily shook her head, looking down at her hands, although Mercedes couldn't tell whether the action was from grief or shame. She sighed, at a loss for how to help the pregnant girl who she'd used to hate. Their past animosities seemed so trivial now as they sat together on the sidewalk, surrounded by chaos, with Mercedes' arm draped over Quinn's shoulder.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter Four_

_"Ah, what can fill the heart? But then, what _can't_?"__  
_

Mercedes' dad had taken what felt like another two hours to reach her and Quinn, muttering a hasty excuse about the roadblocks surrounding the school, and wrapped his arms around the two girls, not even questioning Quinn's presence. He ushered them away from the school and into his car, heading for home at top speed, the three of them wanting to be anywhere but at McKinley.

Half an hour later, Mercedes and Quinn were sitting at the island in the kitchen, the both of them still stunned. Mr. Jones had been in and out, fretting, offering them drinks, food, TV, anything he thought of, but they turned it all down. The girls' conversation was sparse, and they mostly just sat side by side, trying to figure out what to say.

"Maybe we can take you to the hospital tomorrow," Mercedes ventured. "You know…to check up on the baby."

Quinn nodded, her hands absentmindedly tracing circles over her baby bump. "That would be a good idea." Her voice was as flat as her expression.

"Quinn, where have you been staying since the whole thing with Finn went down?" Mercedes asked, realizing that she had never given any thought to the displaced girl's accommodations.

Quinn shrugged. "I've been spending most nights on the couch at Puck's."

"That doesn't sound pleasant."

"It's better than the street," she said.

"Well, we'll drive by there later and pick up your things. You're staying here now," Mercedes ordered.

Quinn's eyes flashed over to her fellow Glee member, shaking her head. "Mercedes, I appreciate it, I really do, but this isn't—" she tried to protest, but Mercedes was having none of it.

"Now you listen to me, girl," she said sternly, holding up a hand. "You have been thrown out of two houses so far, and Puck ain't exactly a responsible baby-daddy. And you're telling me you won't accept my help?" Quinn glanced down guiltily. "You _need_ to be somewhere where you aren't gonna be unhappy. For the baby as much as for you. And besides that, you're in Glee. That means that at some point, you're gonna have to buck up and lean on somebody else in the club for support. You understand what I'm saying?" Quinn nodded silently. Mercedes sighed, her tone returning to soft. "If for no other reason, stay because I could use the company. Especially now."

The former Cheerio's eyes grew suddenly watery, and she smiled, though Mercedes was unsure whether or not Quinn was truly touched or it was just her pregnancy hormones working up. "Thank you, Mercedes," she said.

Mercedes gave her comforting pat on the shoulder, and then her cell phone buzzed on the countertop. She immediately flipped it open, hoping desperately that it was one of her friends calling to say that they were okay despite the world was going to shambles. "Hello?"

"_Mercedes?_"

"Kurt! Thank God you called," Mercedes breathed a sigh of relief. "Are you all right?"

"_Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. I didn't go to school today,_" he said. Mercedes tried to decipher his tone; he sounded as if he didn't quite believe what was happening. "_How about you? Are you all right?_"

"Yeah, I think so. Quinn's here with me, and some of the others have turned up okay. Have you heard from anyone?"

"_No, I just ran into Puck and he told me everything that happened,_" Kurt replied. "_Mercedes…_" His voice was strained and a little shaky.

"What?"

"_Mercedes, I'm sorry._"

"About what?"

"_I'm sorry that I wasn't there. I should've— God, I should've been there._"

"No way, Kurt," she cut him off. "If you'd gone to school today, you could have been killed. Nobody is going to blame you for not being there – we're just glad you're alive. That's all that matters. All right?"

There was a heavy sigh on the other end. "_Still,_" he said, and Mercedes knew she hadn't heard the end of it. "_Puck told me that Finn was hurt._"

Mercedes paused, painfully aware of Quinn listening to her half of the conversation. "Yes, he was."

"_Do you think he'll be okay?_" God, Kurt sounded so heartbroken and hopeful at the same time.

"I'm sure he will, Kurt," she assured him. "I have to go. Call me later, okay?"

"_Let me know if you hear anything,_" he said.

"I will. Bye," Mercedes swallowed a rising lump in her throat and hung up. Turning to Quinn, she said, "I'm gonna go check the news. You don't have to come if you don't want to."

"No, I'll come," Quinn said, maneuvering her bulging body off of the stool. "I need to know what's going on."

Mercedes nodded and gave her a hand in steadying herself on the floor. Together, they went to sit in the living room, watching as a local newsman was just beginning to introduce the events from earlier that morning. Quinn held her breath as the reporter spoke, afraid of what they were about to hear.

"At eight-forty-five a.m. today, the usually calm location of William McKinley High School was transformed into a scene of horror when sophomore Wayne Parker brought a gun onto the school grounds and shot seventeen people as well as himself. Six of the victimized students died on the scene, while the rest, including three wounded staff members, were rushed to the hospital. Only three of the deceased students have been identified thus far, but their names are still being withheld." As the newsman went on with his report, Quinn gave a shaky sigh, staring at her hands in her lap.

"I can't believe that this is happening…" she whispered.

"Me neither."

"You…you don't think God is punishing us, do you?" Quinn asked, her voice small and trembling.

"God has nothing to do with this, Quinn," Mercedes said firmly. "And neither do we. The only reason this happened was because of that Parker kid. Okay?"

Quinn nodded, but Mercedes could see that she wasn't convinced. "Mercedes, do you think Finn is all right?" she asked after a few moments of heavy silence.

Mercedes took a long time to answer, remembering Finn's dull eyes and limp hands as he was wheeled to the ambulance. "I really hope so," she finally said.

* * *

A/N: Sorry this is a short chapter. Next one will be longer :) Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far for your input, and to those who haven't reviewed: please, please do so, because I really care what you think. On this story more than the rest, it's taking more emotional effort than the others I've written. So please give feedback and/or criticism!


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter Five_

_"The first abuse of power is not realizing that you have it."  
_

Puck was leaning against the tiled wall of the boys' bathroom at school, smoking a cigarette and briefly wondering what the teacher was lecturing about in the class he was supposed to be in. He studied himself in the grimy mirror: short Mohawk, harrowed brow, sharp but blockish features. Everything about him screamed Mess With Me And Die, and he liked it. Even if he was so daring as to join Homo Explosion, nobody would try and tease him about it. He liked where his reputation could get him, and he liked that it was _expected_ that he would be the one skipping class to smoke in the bathroom. He did not like that they assumed he would go nowhere in his life, but he liked that there were no high standards he had to meet on his way there.

His concentration was broken when the door swung open, and Kurt walked in, looking out of place amongst the dirtied, graffitied bathroom stalls with his Banana Republic suave. Kurt paused when he saw Puck holding a cigarette, as if sizing him up, and then, without saying a word, simply walked past him to use the stall.

Before Kurt could get by, however, Puck threw the butt to the damp floor, grabbed the flamboyant boy by the lapels and hoisted him with ease onto the sink counter. "You tell anyone about this, you are dead meat, you hear me?" Puck hissed.

Kurt grimaced as Puck's last inhalation of smoke blew directly into his face. "I don't think I'd need to, Noah, considering you smell like the smoking section at the Kipling Pub."

Puck snarled and gripped Kurt by the shoulders once again, pulling him off the counter and spinning him so that he had his back to Puck. Then he shoved the smaller boy in the direction of the toilets, pushing him to his knees and not noticing Kurt's gasp as the water on the floor soaked through his expensive skinny jeans. He placed a strong hand on the back of Kurt's head and, in one swift movement, forced him headfirst into the toilet bowl. He could hear Kurt's protests through the water, and his arms flailed as he tried to surface, but Puck's hand didn't budge. By this time the floor was covered with nearly an inch of water as Kurt's struggle sent it splashing over the edge. Finally, Puck pulled him upwards, and Kurt sucked in a huge breath that was half water. As he coughed, Puck let him go with one last shove, sending him to the ground.

Still energized from the sudden rush of adrenaline, Puck went over and stamped out his dropped cigarette before dropping it in the trash. When he turned around again, Kurt was standing up, soaking wet and eyeing Puck with a strange glint in his eyes, one that Puck couldn't identify. Reaching behind him, Kurt drew something out of his belt and suddenly Puck was looking directly into the nose of a Walther P99. He wasn't sure why exactly his brain amidst the sudden scramble of surprise had identified the make of the handgun, but he was more worried about the weapon than he was worried about the manufacturer.

"Kurt… What are you doing?" Puck asked, holding up his hands.

Kurt tilted his head to the side, still watching Puck with an alarming steadiness. A tear that Puck hadn't seen coming ran down Kurt's cheek, and he asked in a voice that was a mixture of desperation and anger, "_Why do you never stop?_"

Puck's brain struggled for a response, but before he had a chance to speak, Kurt cocked the gun, re-aimed it at Puck's forehead, and pulled the trigger. His head kicked back as the bullet made contact, but… he couldn't feel it. Frowning as he staggered to right himself again, he reached up and felt small rivulets of warm liquid trickle down his face. He looked back at his reflection in the mirror, his eyes growing wide when he saw the perfectly round hole in the center of his forehead, blood running into his eyes and mouth. His hands shook, and he realized that Kurt had vanished; he was alone in the bathroom with a bullet hole in his head.

His heart racing, he spun on his heel and burst out into the hall, freezing when he saw the bodies. The corridor was filled with them. Hundreds of bodies sprawled across the floor, their blood running over the linoleum and combining with that of others'. Amongst them, he could see Finn, Rachel, Mercedes, Tina, Santana, and…

"Quinn!" he cried, seeing her fallen shape several feet away. Deep red had spread across her pale yellow dress; she had been shot through the stomach. He tried to make his way over to her, but he stumbled and fell, slipping in the blood that coated the floor. He yelled and scrabbled backwards when he came face to face with Artie, who lay on his side, his glasses cracked and askew, his eyes wide open and staring straight at Puck.

Puck tried to steady his breathing, to no avail. Lifting his hands, he saw that they were covered completely in dark crimson, and he screamed.

He screamed and screamed and screamed.

* * *

Puck woke with a start as he slammed into his bedroom floor. He gasped for air, sitting upright in the tangle of sheets wrapped around his legs, and rubbed his eyes, half expecting to find that he was bleeding. Blinking in the red glow from his alarm clock, he saw that it was four in the morning, and he was covered with sweat. With shaking hands, he untangled his legs from the sheets and stood to go to the bathroom.

Squinting in the sudden bright light, he splashed cold water onto his face, trying to slow his racing heart. He leaned on his arms against the sink, not wanting to think about the dream he'd just had. The look he'd imagined in Kurt's eyes was still sending shivers up his spine, and he jumped when he saw his mother standing in the doorway.

"Are you all right, Noah?"

He swallowed, shaking the dream from his head and saying, "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" she asked, watching him apprehensively.

"About what?"

"About what happened today." She leaned against the doorframe.

"No," he shook his head, running his fingers over the gauze still taped to his scalp. "Thanks."

"Maybe you should have a talk with your counselor when you get back to school," she suggested.

"Assuming she isn't dead," Puck said under his breath.

His mother blinked in surprise; he's spoken loud enough for her to hear and she was a little shocked that he would speak about it so bluntly. "Noah, are you sure you're all right?"

"_Yes_," he said forcefully.

She sighed, not knowing what she could do for him. In the parenting classes she'd attended during Puck's youth, they had never given a lecture What To Do When Your Child Survives A School Shooting. There were no pamphlets or 101 crash courses for this. "Okay," she said, resigning to wait until he was ready to talk rather than pushing him. "But you should take the day off work tomorrow." Standing on tiptoe, she gave him a light kiss on the cheek and bid him a good night.

Puck, however, did not foresee a good night. After his nightmare, his mind was still reeling, and he tossed and turned in bed, unable to close his eyes let alone go to sleep. When the gray morning light began to peek through the blinds, he groaned and got out of bed once more. Though, after everything that had happened yesterday, it was nice to know that the sun would still rise.

When he walked into the kitchen, still clad in only his boxers, he was surprised to find his mother awake early, standing at the stove and making French toast and bacon. "I thought you couldn't cook," he said by way of greeting, referring to the endless string of nights with simple TV dinners.

"French toast is about the only thing I _can_ cook," she replied. "How you feeling?"

He shrugged, taking a seat at the kitchen card table as she placed a steaming plate next to him. "There's no maple syrup," she said apologetically, sitting down opposite him.

"It's okay, looks good," he said, picking up the toast with his hands and taking a large bite.

"How's your head?" she ventured after a long period of silence.

He shrugged again. "Hurts a little. Mostly itches," he said simply.

"Maybe you can call Finn later and hang out," she suggested, grasping at any possible conversation topic.

Puck froze, his mouth still full of toast. Avoiding his mother's eyes, he slowly swallowed, the food feeling twice as large as it traveled down his throat. "I can't," he said, his voice strained.

His mother's hand flew up to her mouth. "My God, is he all right?"

"I don't know," Puck said, and the truth of his statement really sunk in for the first time. He clenched his hands beneath the table so his mother wouldn't see them shake. "I don't know." The image of Rachel, practically dripping with Finn's blood, loomed large in his head, and he shut his eyes, as if the motion could block it out.

Suddenly, the nausea returned, and Puck rushed out of the kitchen and into the tiny bathroom. Bending over, he emptied his stomach of his just-eaten breakfast into the toilet and sat back against the tub, trying to catch his breath. His mother stood in the doorway, gazing down at him with an expression that was half helplessness and half terror. She came over and sat down beside her son, drawing him into her embrace and holding him as he began to cry. She didn't think she'd seen Noah cry since he was little, and she tried to think of some parental wisdom to say that might make him feel better, but none came to mind. Instead, she could only say "It's going to be okay," over and over again.

* * *

A/N: Wow, this was an emotionally taxing chapter to write. PLEASE review.


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter Six_

_"Desire, make me poor again."  
_

At the Lima General Hospital, Mercedes held Quinn's hand as a nurse technician placed the ultrasound wand on the former cheerleader's bulging stomach. Quinn squeezed Mercedes' fingers, a silent thank you as the nurse's eyes studied the pulsing, grainy image of her unborn child.

"Well, sweetie, the baby seems to be A-okay," the nurse reported cheerfully after a few minutes.

Quinn let out a long breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Thank God," she whispered.

"You said you got kicked in the stomach when you fell?" the nurse asked.

The blonde girl nodded. "Yeah, everyone was trying to get out of the school; no one was really looking where they were going."

The nurse's brow furrowed in sympathy. "I'm so sorry," she said. "God, the things that go on in this world nowadays…" She shook her head, handing Quinn a wad of tissues to clean the gel off her belly. "Well, your baby is one heck of a fighter, Miss Fabray. She's gonna make you proud."

Quinn gave a watery smile, and Mercedes said that she was going to wait outside for her. Exiting the exam room, she walked over to the nurses' station and caught the attention of an idle-looking young man in scrubs.

"How can I help you?"

"I just wanted to check and see if any of my friends had been brought in yesterday," she said. "I can't get in touch with them, and I'm starting to worry."

He gave her a confused look, and she finally said, "I'm from McKinley High."

His face immediately cleared up and he muttered something along the lines of "…sorry for your loss…" before waking up the computer. "Now, what's your friend's name?"

"There's a few," Mercedes said. "Try Tina Cohen-Chang."

The male nurse typed it in, shaking his head when no results turned up.

"Finn Hudson?"

Another lack of results, and Mercedes tried not to think about what that meant for Finn.

"Arthur Abrams."

"We do have an Arthur Abrams here," he said, squinting at the patient description. "Apparently he was badly injured in the stampede."

Mercedes winced, though she was grateful that he was alive. Resolving to visit him once Quinn was out of the exam room, she asked, "How about Santana Lopez?"

The nurse nodded. "We also have her here. Looks like she took a bullet to the leg."

"Oh, my God," Mercedes said. Santana was bound to be pissed that she'd be unable to partake in the Cheerios' practices until her leg was healed. The Hispanic cheerleader and crutches did not go well together. "Can you tell me which rooms they're in?"

"Actually, they're in the same ward together," he said. "Room 248, take the elevators to the second floor, then go left."

Mercedes thanked him and walked back over to where Quinn was just exiting the exam room. She referred to Quinn what she'd learned from the male nurse, and the two of them headed for the elevators. Now that Quinn's baby was out of harm's way, it was time to worry about their friends.

They entered the ward to find Santana reading Vogue magazine in bed, her leg bandaged up in a cumbersome cast and propped up. She had a series of stitches over a cut that sliced through the middle of her right eyebrow, and her hair was let down now that Sue Sylvester was not there to berate her for letting it out of its tight ponytail. Her defined brows shot up in surprise when Mercedes and Quinn walked in. "What are you doing here?" she asked, dropping the magazine onto her stomach.

"We came to see how you were doing," Quinn said, giving Santana a hug.

The Cheerio shrugged. "I'm never going to cheerlead again, that's for sure," she said bitterly.

"What are you talking about?"

"I got shot through the kneecap," Santana explained, still somehow maintaining a snobbish air. "Even though I'll be able to walk, I'll never be able to run, let alone hold a human pyramid. Don't touch him."

The last comment was directed at Mercedes, who had approached the other bed in the room, where Artie lay. The geeky boy looked as if he'd been beaten up in a dark alley by at least five huge strong men. All sorts of cuts and scrapes and dark blue bruises covered his arms and neck and face, and his glasses were missing. His left wrist was in a neon-green cast, and his nose had obviously been broken.

"He's still unconscious," Santana stated. "He hasn't been awake since yesterday morning. The doctors said not to touch him."

"Oh," Mercedes said simply. It pulled her heartstrings to see Artie in such a vulnerable position, and she wanted to make sure for herself that he was okay, but doctor's orders were doctor's orders. She settled for sitting in one of the chairs drawn between Artie's and Santana's beds.

"Have you heard anything?" Santana asked, for once not sounding either condescending or bitter.

Quinn shook her head sadly. "All we know is that six people were killed. We don't know who."

Santana frowned. "Six? It was seven."

"What are you talking about?" Quinn asked, her eyes widening.

"Seven people got killed," Santana said. "I saw it on a newspaper one of the nurses was carrying."

"Jesus," Mercedes whispered. She wasn't ready for this. "Do…do you know who—?"

Santana shook her head. "No, the only person I've seen from school so far is Wheels," she said, gesturing with her head in the direction of the unconscious Artie. "I talked to Brittany on the phone, though, but she's not much help when it comes to getting news."

Mercedes sighed, rubbing her eyes in weariness. She didn't want to think about this. She didn't want to hear that yet another person had died for no reason, in a place that was supposed to be safe for them. She didn't want to see Artie injured almost beyond recognition. She didn't want to remember Finn's dulled eyes. All she wanted to do was wake up from this awful nightmare that nobody – _no_body – deserved.

* * *

Rachel awoke after a long night of fitful sleep to a quiet room; she had not set her alarm and for once, she did not bounce out of bed. The silence that was so uncommon in her life pressed against her, making it hard to breathe, and she pretended not to notice the waves of goose bumps running over her body. She felt small and not in control. She wanted her dads to comfort her and say that everything was going to be okay. She wanted to see Finn, to see him smile at her with that funny airheaded smile he had and to hear him tell her that he'd be fine. Usually she didn't mind solitude. Today she did.

She wrapped her arms around herself, squeezed her eyes shut, and tried to stop replaying the earlier events in her mind. But her brain, still high on fear and shock from the day before, refused to listen, and forced her to watch Finn fall to the ground again and again and again. She could still hear herself scream as she dropped to her knees beside him, her voice mingling with the shrieks and yells from outside. Sniffing and swallowing the lump that was once again rising in her throat, she dragged herself out of bed and downstairs, skipping her exercise routine.

Leo was sitting at the kitchen table in his t-shirt and shorts that he usually wore to bed, sipping a cup of coffee and reading the morning's newspaper. "Hi, Daddy," she greeted him.

He looked up and hastily turned the paper over so that she wouldn't see what the article was, but the action told her everything without her needing to see the headline. "Hey, sweetheart," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"In need of a cup of coffee," she said exhaustedly, sitting down at the table with him.

Leo nodded and stood to brew a cup for her. He didn't need to question why she picked today to start drinking coffee. "So, uh, Rachel," he started, rummaging through the cupboard for her favorite tea mug. "I took the day off work, so, um, if you want to do anything…"

"Thanks, Daddy," she said. "I appreciate it."

He nodded, handing her the steaming cup. She mixed in heavy helpings of sugar and milk as he continued. "Dad still had to go to work, but he's coming home early," he said, reclaiming his seat.

Rachel sipped her coffee in silence.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Leo asked softly, pushing his glasses up his nose.

She sighed, studying the grain of the tabletop. "Maybe later," she said finally. She stood and put her mug in the sink. "I'm going to go check the news," she told him, heading towards the living room.

"Uh, sweetie?" he said, making her turn back.

"Yes?"

Leo nervously took off his glasses, wiping them on the hem of his shirt. "I, uh… I think you should see this," he said, reaching for the overturned newspaper.

Rachel eyed the paper with apprehension, and she could feel her heart pick up the pace. "Why?" she asked breathily.

"It's… it's about what happened yesterday."

Leo held out the paper to her, and Rachel paused for several moments before, slowly, uncertainly, taking it from him. Her hands trembled slightly as she unfolded it to the front page. The headline seemed to burn her eyes, but that was possibly from the oncoming tears. _**SEVEN STUDENTS KILLED IN LIMA BLOODBATH**_**.** The first word, however, scared her even more than the rest. The newswoman had reported six deaths. Six. Hadn't she? Her eyes traveled down the page, landing on the seven victims' yearbook photos. They were all smiling.

Harper Lewis.

Jake Harris.

Gretchen Schwartz.

Hayley Grafton.

Peter West.

Tina Cohen-Chang.

Finn Hudson.

Time seemed to skip a few moments then. Rachel suddenly found herself on her knees, her father's arms wrapped around her, supporting her, protecting her. Her hands clamped over her ears and she felt as if her chest was being torn open and her heart and lungs ripped out. She didn't realize that she was half sobbing, half screaming.

"It's okay, shh, it's okay," Leo whispered, repeating the words over and over as he rocked her in his arms, as much to reassure himself as his daughter. Her reaction terrified him far more than the ordeal she had been through. Eventually, her voice faded, her grief reduced to heavy, empty sobs. "It's not fair," she managed, her voice cracked and dry and broken.

"I know, sweetie," Leo said softly, kissing her on the top of her head. "I know."

* * *

A/N: Once again, any and all feedback is appreciated. Thanks a ton to everyone who's reviewed so far


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter 7_

_"There are silences harder to take back than words."  
_

When Mercedes and Quinn returned home, they found Kurt waiting on the front step, his hands clasped and his head hanging. "Kurt? What's wrong?" Mercedes asked.

"Oh, hello Quinn," he said, sounding surprised that she was there. "Mercedes, I need to talk to you."

"Okay."

"Alone," he said, casting a furtive but pointed glance at Quinn.

"Uh, Quinn—?" Mercedes started, but Quinn cut her off.

"It's okay, I'll just be inside," she said. She gave Kurt a pat on the shoulder as she walked past him.

Mercedes took a seat next to her friend, studying him with a worried expression. Kurt had dark circles under his eyes, and it was clear that he hadn't slept the night before. "What's going on?" she asked.

Now that Quinn was gone, Kurt seemed to fall apart completely. Tears welled up and spilled down his cheeks, and, as he was unable to speak, Mercedes drew him into an embrace, leaning him against her shoulder. "It's all my fault," he cried.

"What? Kurt, what could _possibly_ make you think that you had anything to do with this?" Mercedes asked, pushing him back so that she could look at him directly. "Come on, deep breath," she coached.

Kurt did as he was told, drawing a long, shaky breath and letting it out slowly. His face was blotchy from crying, and as he spoke his words were punctuated by hiccups. "The…the guy with the gun…"

"Wayne Parker."

Kurt nodded. "He…he told me, before he did it…he said he was going to-to bring his dad's gun to school, and-and kill—" His words were choked off by a fresh round of tears.

Mercedes' heart was racing by this time with the gravity of what Kurt was saying. "Kill who? Kurt, who did he say he was gonna kill?"

Kurt's voice shook uncontrollably. "E-everybody." His hands flew up to cover his face. "I-I _knew_ and I didn't tell anybody! I j-just thought he was joking! B-but I skipped school be-because I thought that he m-might actually do it, and-and I didn't want—"

Mercedes abruptly stood up. "Come on," she said, taking Kurt's clammy hand and pulling him to his feet. Supporting him with an arm around his waist, she guided him into the house and into the kitchen. "Wash your face," she ordered.

Quinn, who was sitting at the island counter drinking a cup of tea, watched Kurt with wide eyes that for once were not full of disdain for him. She gently climbed off the stool and set about brewing a mug of tea for him, too.

After Kurt had splashed cold water onto his face, he leaned against the sink, staring out the window above it at the blue sky outside. It was hard to believe that the world could look so sunny and good after everything that had happened in the last…was it really only a day ago? It felt like weeks, months. Maybe years. He sighed.

"You feeling better?" Quinn asked.

He turned to see her holding out a steaming tea mug to him. He smiled weakly and gratefully took it, but set it on the counter instead of drinking it. Closing his eyes, he took a long breath to try and settle his erratic heartbeat before he opened his mouth. Finally, he said them. He said, aloud, the five words that had been playing over and over in his head since he read the paper that morning, the five words that were forever branded into his memory.

"Finn and Tina are dead."

It took a while for the girls to react. Mercedes was first. She slowly lowered herself into a seat, lacing her fingers together in front of her face as if in prayer. She felt as if her ribs were cracking. Quinn, on the other hand, was completely frozen, staring at Kurt with a look that was a terrifying mixture of fear, sadness, and rising anger.

"H-how?" she managed to ask. "How did he die?"

Fresh tears spilled down Kurt's cheeks. "In the ambulance. On the way to the hospital."

By now, Quinn was beginning to hyperventilate, clutching her chest as she tried to suck in oxygen. "No, no, no, no," she muttered to herself, wringing her hands.

Mercedes closed her eyes, a few tears working their way towards her chin. Finn and Tina. Tina and Finn. Out of the dozen Glee members, the two of them had been the most loved. Though they may have been on the receiving end of more than a few slushies, there was not a single person in Glee or even in the school who had actually disliked them as individuals. Though Tina, if she were alive, might have argued the same for Artie, people did not like to be around him. He made them uncomfortable and they resented him for it. But Tina and Finn… _Why_ did it have to be them? Several minutes passed, in which Kurt had taken a seat beside Mercedes, crossing his arms on the counter and resting his forehead on them, and Quinn had retreated to the bathroom to vomit.

Mercedes, forever the mother hen, swallowed the rock in her throat and succeeded in stemming her tears for the most part. She had to stay strong. For Kurt, for Quinn. She couldn't even imagine what Kurt was going through right at that second – not only had he lost a key member of his entourage, but the boy he was in love with had been murdered in cold blood, _and_ he felt responsible for both their deaths along with the five others. She felt Tina's and Finn's absence just as sharply as he did, but Kurt's burden far surpassed her own. Even though one of the many reasons that she and Kurt were so close was that they both had the talent for giving witty and true advice in practically any situation, this was so far out of both their leagues that neither of them spoke, settling for knowing in the silence that they would always be there for one another.

* * *

Rachel was drifting in and out of a restless sleep, plagued by nightmares, when her bedroom phone rang, startling her awake. "Hello?" she answered, still a little groggy.

"_Hey, Berry,_" said the voice on the other end.

"Oh," she said quietly, her stomach twisting when she recognized Puck's Texan lilt. "Hello, Noah."

She could almost feel him frown. "_…Were you expectin' someone else?_" he asked. The question wasn't unkind, just confused by her tone.

"I…I was hoping it was Finn," she admitted, running her fingers through her hair.

There was a long pause. "_Finn's dead, Rachel,_" Puck said.

She sighed, fighting back tears. "I know."

"_…Oh._"

A few seconds of pregnant silence passed, and Rachel finally asked, "Was there something you wanted to talk about?"

Puck exhaled slowly. "_I dunno… I don't even know why I called you in the first place, to be honest. I…I guess I just felt like I should be callin' somebody._"

"Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad you chose to call me," she stated, regaining her composure, if only for a moment.

"_Really?_"

"Yes. I…needed someone to talk to as well. My dads, they…well, they don't really understand."

"_Yeah, my mom neither._"

There was another pause in which Rachel checked her alarm clock. "Noah, it's practically three in the morning."

"_Yeah…I couldn't sleep…_" he replied slowly. "_I didn't wake you up, did I?_"

"No," she lied. "I couldn't sleep either."

"_Nightmares?_"

"Yes," she sighed. Well, at least that was true.

"_Me too,_" he confessed. "_You…you wanna talk about it?_"

"I think I'll be okay."

"_Okay._"

"What about you?"

"_What?_"

"Do you want to talk about yours?"

"_Oh. Nah, I'm good._"

"Are you sure?"

"_…Yeah._"

"Let's not talk about this, Noah," Rachel said decidedly, sitting up straighter in bed. "I'm tired."

"_You wanna go back to sleep?_"

"No, no, that's not what I meant. I just… I'm tired of thinking about Finn and Tina and all of this God-awful mess that's going on right now. Distract me," she said, sounding a little more like her regular self, though Puck thought that 'God-awful mess' was a vast understatement.

"_Well, what do you wanna talk about?_"

Rachel hummed to herself as she tried to come up with a conversation topic that wouldn't lead back to their friends. "What exactly are you planning on doing after you graduate?" she asked with genuine curiosity.

Puck seemed caught off guard by the question. "_Well, um, I was thinkin' about vocational school._"

"Really? To study what?"

"_I dunno…mechanics or somethin'…_"

"I think going to vocational school would be a good thing for you."

"_Listen, Berry,_" he interrupted, sounding uncomfortable. "_I can't talk like this right now. It just…it just feels wrong to have a normal conversation._"

"Oh. Okay."

"_I'm gonna go._"

"No, don't—"

Rachel sighed, dropping the phone into her lap. The line was already dead.

* * *

A/N: This chapter was almost as difficult to write as Puck's nightmare. Please review


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter Eight_

_"Water deepens where it has to wait."  
_

Brittany was someone who understood far more than she was given credit for. She knew that she wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, and she knew that when she handed in a test, the teachers would shake their heads and possibly even _tsk tsk_ before writing her grade on the top. But that was all right with her, as long as she had a comrade-in-arms to help her when she got confused, and she'd found that in Santana. Now, however, she found herself confused by something Santana was saying rather than her teachers.

Walking into Santana's hospital room, she'd seen the enormous cast on her friend's leg and her jaw had dropped. "Wow, what happened to you?" she'd asked.

Santana had brightened considerably when Brittany arrived, and she'd put her magazine down and tried to sit up a little further. They'd filled the time with idle conversation and gossip, until Santana finally looked at Brittany and realized that her friend didn't know what was going on. Which – on a normal day – wasn't unusual, but these past couple of days had been anything but normal.

"Brittany…do you know what happened at school?" Santana asked, using the soft, sweet tone that only Brittany ever heard.

"You mean all the flashing lights?" Brittany asked.

"Yeah," Santana nodded. "You get why they were all there?"

"…Someone got hurt?" the blonde guessed.

Santana wiped her eyes, which were dry but burning. This was harder than she thought. "Yeah, someone got hurt," she said. "Brittany, a guy brought a gun to school."

"Why?"

"Because he was upset," Santana answered. "He shot a lot of people. That's why there were all those cop cars and ambulances. That's why I'm in the hospital with this stupid cast."

Brittany frowned, and Santana could see that she was starting to grasp onto the situation. "Is this like in the movies?" she asked.

"Sort of." Santana leaned over (a difficult task considering her leg was locked in place) and took Brittany's hand, forcing the blonde to look her in the eye. "Brit… Finn and Tina… they're gone."

"Where'd they go?"

"They're dead."

Santana watched Brittany's expression evolve as she processed the answer, compared it to what she knew, realized what it meant, and understood. Her eyes were suddenly swimming.

"What about Artie?" she asked, looking over to where her friend lay, bruised and broken and still asleep. "Is he gonna come back?"

"Yes, he'll come back," Santana promised.

"What happened to him? He doesn't look like he got shot; it's different in the movies," Brittany sniffled.

"He didn't. His wheelchair tipped over when everybody was trying to get out of the school at once. They all ran over him," Santana explained.

"Oh."

"Brittany, it's going to be okay."

"How do you know?"

Santana was caught off guard by the inquiry; without a doubt, it was the most intelligent question her friend had ever asked. Shaking off her surprise, she squeezed Brittany's hand. "Trust me," she said. "You just have to trust me."

* * *

Kurt sighed, his fingers running over the keys of the piano. He was tired. He hadn't slept since before the incident, and his brain had been running a hundred miles an hour twenty-four-seven. He sat in the choir room, not really understanding why he was there but grateful for the peace and quiet as he practiced a song he'd heard on the radio a while back. He felt a little more relaxed here, and it was a welcome change from the past two days of tension, guilt, and grief. The change was short, though, as he heard a scuffling of sneakers behind him.

Finn stood in the middle of the room, regarding Kurt with the same pained look that the Glee members had seen when he discovered Quinn had lied about the baby. Startled, Kurt attempted to shoot backwards and succeeded in only tripping over the piano bench and landing on his backside. His eyes, however, stayed trained on Finn.

Kurt had never thought he'd be afraid of his crush, but here he was, and all six and a half feet of Finn Hudson was standing right there, while Kurt knew very well that Finn was supposed to be lying on a table in the morgue.

"I _trusted_ you," Finn said. His voice was so strangled. "I _trusted _you, and you let me die."

"I'm sorry," was all Kurt could manage, his heart knocking against the inside of his ribcage. "I'm so sorry."

"How could you do this to me?" Finn demanded.

"I'm so sorry," Kurt said again.

Tina materialized beside the football player, making Kurt jump. "I thought you were my friend," she said.

"I was going to get out of here," Finn stated.

Finn and Tina's voices began to overlap as they edged closer to him.

"I was going to go to college—"

"Who's Artie going to be with now?"

"—you took that away from me."

"I wasn't ready…"

"It's too late…"

"I hate you."

"How could you do this?"

"You're a murderer."

"You might as well have pulled the trigger."

All Kurt could do was cry, over and over, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Suddenly, three shots rang out, reverberating off the choir room walls, and Finn and Tina looked down, then at each other. A dark wet stain was rapidly spreading over Tina's heart, running down her abdomen. Bright crimson was blooming on Finn's shirt; he'd been shot through the ribs, and the side of his neck had been torn open by a stray bullet. They turned back to Kurt as their blood began to drip onto the floor.

"You did this, Kurt," they said in unison, still moving closer. "You did this."

"Kurt!" Finn shouted.

"You did this."

"Kurt!"

"Get away from me!" Kurt shouted, thrashing as Finn dived at him, clawing at the back of his shirt as he desperately crawled in the other direction.

"_Kurt!_"

Kurt suddenly found himself face to face with his father, who was shaking him almost violently, trying to wake him up. "Dad?"

Burt backed off a little now that Kurt was awake, but stayed sitting on the edge of his son's bed. "Jesus Christ, Kurt, what were you dreaming about?"

Kurt was still tense and wide-eyed, trying to settle his breathing into a normal rhythm. "Nothing," he said.

"Kurt, I heard you screaming from upstairs," Burt said, assuming the rarely-seen side of him that was one hundred percent parental. "You were dreaming about something pretty significant."

Kurt drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "I don't want to talk about it," he said quietly.

"Y'know…maybe we should think about getting you some help…" Burt thought out loud.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I don't know what I can do for you," Burt said. "I mean, look at you, it's been two days, you're waking up screaming and crying and you don't wanna talk about it. This is out of my league. So, unless you change your mind about talking… we should get you some help."

Kurt said nothing, avoiding his father's gaze. Eventually, Burt gave his son a fatherly pat on the leg, stood up, and walked back upstairs.

* * *

A/N: Yes, it was another scary dream sequence. I won't be updating for a couple days, since Spring Break is coming to a close. I am catching a plane tonight to go back to boarding school in the States and won't get there until late late late Tuesday night, and then classes resume on Wednesday. Being a senior, I don't have a lot of time, but trust me, I am dedicated to this story and I WILL finish it without rushing it. You can still look forward to several more chapters of sadness. Please leave a review!


	9. Chapter 9

_Chapter Nine_

_"It's easy to renounce the world till you see who picks up what you renounced."  
_

Puck felt sick. Even after talking to Rachel the night before, he still hadn't slept a wink. Rubbing his eyes, he did the math in his head… Twenty-six hours. He'd been awake for twenty-six hours straight, since he'd woken from his nightmare, and his body was showing no signs of tiring any time soon. He did feel sick to his stomach, though. He reasoned that it was a result of the house being too stuffy (though the growing odor of the two-day-old pizza in the kitchen certainly didn't help in that field) and he resolved to go for a run. The sudden ceasing of practically all physical activity had to be messing with his head.

He began to feel better almost immediately as his body settled back into its usual rhythm. As Puck concentrated on making his legs and arms work in unison, getting air into his lungs, and avoiding any obstacles he might run into, all thoughts of his friends both alive and dead faded away, and he felt…normal. Which felt good.

He'd run a very roundabout route through town for about four and a half miles when the good feeling vanished altogether. Standing on a street corner catching his breath, his heartbeat roaring in his ears, he saw the flowers. Covering the green slice of grass dividing the street from the McKinley High parking lot, the flowers were piled high, huge bouquets of orchids, lilies, roses, and a hundred others Puck couldn't name. A few candles burned in their midst, and a huge black banner fluttered in the breeze about them, strung up between two trees, reading _IN MEMORIAM_. The names of the deceased were written beneath. Remembering the newspaper article from the day before, he recalled that a memorial service was going to be held in two weeks on a Sunday (anyone was welcome). He had to think for a minute before he could remember what day of the week it was. Thursday.

Angrily, Puck turned on his heel and ran home, taking the direct route. As he approached his house, a girl about his age walked past, and Puck stopped short, grabbing her shoulder and turning her around. "Tina?"

"Um…"

Puck blinked. He could have _sworn…_

"…can I help you?" the girl asked.

"Uh…no. Sorry." Giving his head a shake, he muttered something about thinking she was someone else, watching her shrug and walk away.

Walking into his house, Puck shut the door behind him, peering through the glass pane to see if the girl was still there.

"What are you doing?"

Puck flinched and whipped around. "Jesus, Abby, don't scare me like that."

His nine-year-old sister crossed her arms indignantly. "I _said_ hello, but you didn't hear me."

"Oh. Well, what do you want?" he asked, stepping away from the door. "You hungry or somethin'?"

Abby gave him a questioning look.

"What?"

"How come you're acting scared all the time?" she asked.

Puck stared at her. "What are you talkin' about?"

"I heard you crying last night. And you jump every time I say hi."

He frowned. "I do?" Abby nodded. Scratching at his head bandage in search of a response, he finally settled for, "You'll get it when you're older."

"But that's what Mom said," Abby whined.

Puck laughed lightly, his mind elsewhere. He gave her hair a ruffle. "You'll get it when you're older," he repeated.

"No_ah_," she protested, but he had already exited the kitchen and disappeared down the hallway.

Puck locked the bathroom door behind him, leaning back against it. Abby was right. He was going to shit. Flinching at every noise, gruesome nightmares, seeing ghosts on the street, calling Rachel in the middle of the night… A quick glance at the mirror showed darkened skin under his eyes. Puck reached up, digging a fingernail under the corner of the tape holding the gauze in place, and in one tear, ripped the bandage away from his skin. Letting out a hiss of pain, he dropped the bloodstained patch into the trash and leaned towards the mirror to inspect his head. The gash was smaller than he'd thought, but was still large enough to leave an ugly scar. It was scabbed over and painful-looking, and enhanced the image he'd constantly maintained with the mohawk. He ran his fingers over his strip of hair for a moment, accidentally brushing over the healing wound and producing a wince.

Abruptly enough so that not even Puck was sure what he was doing, or aware of the thought process that led to the action in the first place, he pulled out the sink drawer and withdrew the electric razor he used to keep his mohawk in check. Later he would think back on this spontaneity and possibly wonder why he didn't hesitate, but now he didn't bother to question the nonexistent logic behind it. He switched on the razor, guiding it over his scalp with the ease of practice, carefully working around the gash down to the base of his neck. Dark brown hair littered the counter and the sink; he brushed it all into the trash can and regarded himself in the mirror. It felt strange, certainly, but it didn't feel bad. He looked…nice. Tough still, but nice. He didn't look as though he might punch anyone who spoke to him. And…he liked it.

* * *

Santana had never considered herself to be a friend to Artie. It was simple math, really. He was a geek (in a wheelchair, no less) and she was a cheerleader – it didn't add up. Once she'd started to actually enjoy being in Glee club, everything she'd held against him dropped, but she was still more than willing to avoid him, if only for the sake of her reputation. Sure, he had a killer voice (she secretly thought his was the best in the club), but he was still in a wheelchair. It wasn't like he tried to hang out with her outside of Glee, though, so avoiding him was easy.

Now, though? Not so much.

With the gigantic cast on her leg, she was pretty much immobile and was forced spend the vast majority of her time reading any and all magazines her mom and sister brought from the hospital gift shop. For the most part, she managed to avoid thinking about the fact that she'd be stuck with a limp for the rest of her life, but she was an athlete born and bred, and lying in bed all day made her far more irritable than usual, causing the shattered kneecap to become more prominent in her thoughts.

Artie, however, made things easier by staying asleep. Santana had overheard his doctor explain his condition to Mr. and Mrs. Abrams. It looked more serious than it was, and he wasn't in a coma, which was a good sign. Instead, his brain was keeping him asleep while his body took care of the preliminary healing. Simply put, he wouldn't wake up until the worst was over. Santana was grateful that he wasn't awake, though. If he'd been awake they'd be forced into making conversation. With Artie out of the picture, it was almost like having a private room.

But Artie would have to wake up sooner or later.

It was Day Three in the hospital, a Friday, when Santana heard a gasp of breath from his side of the room, hailing his return to consciousness. She looked around the room, unsure of what to do. It was nearly ten-thirty at night; there were very few medical personnel around, and both her family and Artie's had gone home for the night. She watched him in silence as Artie raised his arms, turning them this way and that so as to see the full extent of the damage. He prodded his face, wincing when he felt his nose. Giving an audible groan, he let his arms fall gently back to his sides.

"Hi," Santana said.

Artie's head whipped in her direction; he hadn't noticed she was there. "_Ow_," he said when he turned his neck too far. His eyes landed on her leg. "What happened to you?" he asked.

"Got shot in the kneecap," she said bitterly.

"Shot?!" he cried.

Santana stared at him. "Artie, do you remember what happened?"

Artie's expression made it very clear that no, he did not remember. "I thought I was in another car wreck," he said. It was true, that was his first assumption. But he'd never seen that look in Santana's eyes – hell, in _any_ of his friends' eyes. The only time he'd seen it before was in his mother's eyes, before the EMTs had gotten her and his eight-year-old self out of the heap of twisted metal that had been their car. And the only thing he'd known then was that he _never_ wanted to see that look again.

"You weren't in a car wreck," Santana said, her face pinched.

"Well, I'd figured as much…" Artie replied slowly.

Santana shifted awkwardly. "You know Wayne Parker?" she asked.

Artie thought for a moment. "Yeah, he's in my math class. What does he have to do with—?"

"He brought a gun to school," she said, cutting him off. "And he killed a bunch of kids." Artie's eyes grew wide, his jaw dropping, as she continued. "Your chair tipped over when everyone was trying to get out of the building, and you got trampled."

"Is everyone in Glee okay?" he asked immediately.

Santana took a deep breath, wiping her dry but burning eyes again.

"Jesus," Artie said. "Who?"

"Finn."

"Oh, God…"

"There's, uh, gonna be a memorial at school in a couple weeks," she said.

Artie nodded in shock. "And everyone else is okay? In Glee, I mean," he inquired.

And she'd almost told him then that the girl he loved was also gone, but she saw the hope in his eyes and face, and she just…couldn't. She nodded. "Yes, everyone's fine," she said.

Artie let out a sigh of relief and settled back against his pillow to go to sleep.

"Everyone's fine," Santana whispered.

* * *

A/N: I wrote this on the plane on my way back to the States, so it might not be all that coherent, but I did some revision and I hope you liked it. Leave a review, please.


	10. Chapter 10

_Chapter Ten_

_"Do we return again and again to our losses to get back what we had or to lose what remains?"_

For the duration of the night, Santana remained wide awake. She tried to convince herself that the reason her mind refused to turn off was simply because her leg was itching like crazy beneath the inch-thick plaster (decorated with love by Brittany), but Artie, because of his broken nose, was lightly snoring as well, and the sound made it impossible for her to put him out of her mind. Nervously, she chewed on one of her manicured nails. What was she going to do when he woke up in the morning? His parents were bound to come in before noon, and they certainly weren't going to maintain her lie. Neither would any of the medical staff. And even if they did, Tina's name was plastered across all of the newspapers and channels. Santana had read the article word for word, and Tina had been the first one killed. Finn had been last.

Fidgeting, Santana toyed with a strand of her hair (which needed a wash) and scratched around the top of the cast, which only seemed to make the itch worse. Her teeth felt as if they were coated with wool, and she was sure they'd gained a slight yellow tint from her time in the hospital. She'd been so preoccupied with avoiding any confrontation with her various predicaments that she'd forgotten about most hygiene rituals. Ms. Sylvester would have had her head if she'd done that while in school. She bit back a frustrated sigh as the thought of Ms. Sylvester reminded her once again that she would be unable to cheerlead from now on.

Santana gritted her teeth and turned on the light above her bed, blinking as the sudden white light hurt her retinas. She fumbled for the book she'd been reading earlier, turned to the dog-eared page, and sunk into a different world. Since she'd finished all the magazines (even _Equestrian_), her mother had started to bring her the pulp novels that the gift shop stocked. Santana figured bitterly that at this rate, she was going to be a bookworm by the time they got her cast off. With any luck, she wouldn't need glasses. Though, she supposed she could rock that look if she worked at it.

The next time Santana looked up from her book, gray morning light was peeking through the blinds on the room's one window. She was so tired, she could have sworn that she could feel her brain cells dying one by one. Casting an anxious glance over at Artie, she placed the book back on the table provided, adjusted her pillows, and let her beaten body drift…

* * *

She was standing in the middle of her ward, leaning on crutches (though the cast was no longer there). Artie lay in bed in front of her, staring at her with such anger and betrayal that the heart she didn't like to admit she had twisted around itself, sending shots of nausea up her esophagus and down through her intestines. "_You lied to me_," Artie hissed.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"How could you _do_ that?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

She shook her head, fighting back hot tears. "I don't know," she choked out.

Artie threw back the blanket then, shocking Santana as he swung his legs onto the floor, and stood up on his own two feet. He was taller than her by several inches. "Didn't I – _don't_ I deserve to know?" he demanded, stepping forward. His lip curled viciously.

"Yes," she breathed, backing up as well as she could without letting her weight fall on her broken leg. She could feel the broken bones grating against each other.

Artie drew closer, towering over her, speaking with a voice that made it obvious he was fighting for breath. "What _right _did you have?" he asked.

"None," she said. "None."

The boy stopped moving, gave a shuddering sigh, then closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands. "You should be crying," he said, so quietly that she wasn't sure she'd heard him. He was right, though. How messed up was it that she could sob over revoked tanning privileges, but when two of her friends were brutally murdered, her eyes stayed dry? That wasn't the way the world was supposed to work, was it?

"I know," she murmured. "I know."

He shook his head, dropping his hands. "You should be crying," he repeated, louder this time. His eyes met hers, and his face twisted into an unrecognizable mask of grieved rage. Santana was amazed to find that she was afraid of him. Afraid of Artie, established as the sweetest boy in the club, who wouldn't have hurt a fly even if presented with the chance. He was smart, kind, reasonable, frank when he needed to be, and so many other things, but one thing he was not was dangerous. So why was Santana scared out of her wits? Her question was answered immediately.

Keeping his burning eyes locked with hers, he raised his arm and, in the blink of an eye, struck her backhanded across the face. She let out a cry of pain as her cheek stung, and she was almost certain her nose was bleeding. When she turned back a moment later, Artie repeated the action with his other hand. This time, one of her crutches slid out from under her, and she crumpled to the ground, screaming as her shattered knee exploded in searing, white-hot pain. Her hands shook, and she attempted to pull herself across the floor away from him, but he reached down, grabbing a fistful of her hair and tossing her head into the wall with a loud, resounding _crack_. Her vision vanished into white stars when her skull made contact, and she was sure her skull had at least a hairline break. Artie dragged one of her crutches up off the floor and raised it above his head. "No, please!" she begged, holding up a weakly defensive hand. "Please don't!"

"You should be crying," he hissed again.

Then, he brought the crutch down, metal slamming into Santana's temple with a tremendous force. The world spun, and disappeared altogether.

* * *

"You okay, sweetie?" a nurse's voice greeted her when Santana's eyes flew open and she sucked in air, as if she hadn't breathed for several minutes. The nurse, a youngish woman of obvious Scandinavian descent, came over and brushed Santana's hair back with a motherly ease.

"Y-yeah," Santana stammered, still catching her breath.

"Bad dream?" the nurse guessed.

"What time is it?" Santana asked, avoiding the question.

"A little after one. You missed lunch, but I'll go see if I can rustle up some grub for you." The nurse smiled, giving Santana's shoulder a pat before she left the room.

Santana swallowed, looking over to Artie's side of the room, afraid that she'd come face to face with the Artie she'd dreamt about. But there was no angry or vicious or dangerous Artie to confront. There was no Artie at all. His bed was made, the sheets folded neatly, the heart monitors and extra equipment was gone, the reading lamp was off, and the cards that his little sister had made for him and placed along the windowsill had vanished.

She jumped when the door opened again and the nurse re-entered, bearing a tray of unappetizing hospital food. "It's chicken noodle today," she said. "You're lucky it's not the beef stroganoff—"

"Where's Artie?" Santana demanded, cutting her off. She was afraid of what she might hear, that her wheelchair-bound friend's heart had stopped during the night, that his beaten lungs had stopped working, that the concussion was worse than they'd thought and he'd bled to death…

Instead, the nurse said, "Your friend asked to be moved to a different room."

"Can I see him?" Santana requested. "I need – I need to talk to him."

The nurse placed the meal tray on the table provided. "Honey…" she started. "You can't see him."

It took several seconds for her statement to register. "What? What are you talking about? I _need_ to see him!"

"You can't," the nurse repeated. "He doesn't want to see you. And…his parents have requested that you keep your distance. He's been through enough."

Santana's jaw dropped, and she couldn't help but feel as if her heart was trying to turn inside out. She could feel her eyes burn worse than they had since the shooting.

"Their words, not mine," the nurse finished, holding up her hands.

* * *

A/N: Wow, ten chapters. Sorry this one took so long to post. Please please PLEASE leave a review.


	11. Chapter 11

_Chapter Eleven_

_"You can't pretend you're just watching the actors. Someone a little further away will see you acting the part of the watcher."  
_

Kurt wasn't sure what he was supposed to be doing. He fidgeted as he sat on the too-squashy sofa that was provided. Where was the classic psychiatrist trademark couch that he always saw in the movies? Instead, this particular shrink chose to lure his patients into a false sense of security with a loveseat that sunk far more than a few inches whenever someone sat on it, while the doctor himself sat in the matching armchair on the other side of the coffee table. This wasn't an office, it was a parlor, Kurt thought with disdain.

"Remember, I'm here to help," Dr. Kendrick said again for what had to be the hundredth time. Kurt had been there for only twenty minutes and already Kendrick was proving himself to be a quack.

"I just don't know what you want me to talk about," Kurt said, slightly exasperated.

Kendrick shrugged. He was a man in his thirties, with longish black hair and a goatee. "This session, we don't have to talk about anything serious. Just get to know one another."

"Uh-huh," Kurt said slowly as he tried to ignore how sketchy that statement sounded.

"So, what do you like? Any hobbies?" Kendrick twirled his pen deftly through his fingers.

"Um, fashion, singing…" Kurt said. "I help out my dad in the shop a lot."

"Do you enjoy that?" Kendrick asked. "From what I understand, fashion and mechanics don't often go together well."

"There's no conflict."

"Ah, good," the doctor said, scribbling on his notepad. "Did your dad explain to you why you're here in the first place?"

"He said he didn't know how to help me."

"Help you with what?"

Kurt rubbed his knees in agitation. "You already know," he said nervously.

"I'd like to hear you say it."

The boy shifted anxiously. "Look, I don't know what you're trying to do here, but—"

Kendrick held up a hand to stop him. "I've said before, Kurt, I'm just here to help. You're suffering from what's known as survivor's guilt. You think that because you lived to tell the tale, the shooting at your school is somehow your fault, when in reality you've nothing to do with it. And I can see by your expression that I'm correct, so why don't you tell me why it is you think you caused the students' deaths?"

Kurt stared at him.

"It's okay, you can tell me. I don't have to tell your dad if you don't want me to."

There was a long silence, in which Kurt held Kendrick's gaze, unwilling to open his mouth and give the doctor the satisfaction. "I think we're done here," Kurt said at long last, briskly standing and exiting the office. He brushed past his dad in the waiting room, who jumped up and asked him where the hell he was going.

"I'll be in the car," Kurt stated without turning around.

When Burt finally climbed into the driver's seat beside his son after apologizing to Dr. Kendrick and paying for the shortened session, Kurt was leaning silently against the car window.

"Listen, Kurt…"

"I'm not going back in there," Kurt said flatly.

"Well, you're not giving me a lotta options here, kid. So, unless you can think of something else, you're gonna be back here next Monday same time."

Kurt's head shot up in horror. "No, Dad, please don't make me—"

"You were _screaming_, Kurt," his father interrupted. "And don't pretend like it didn't happen again at least twice last night. You were screaming, and you're jumpy, and you're scared. So you tell me what to do, and I'll give it a shot. But if your answer is to just leave you alone, then I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna do that. Because no father in his right mind would sit by and watch his kid kill himself from the inside out."

Kurt sighed and closed his eyes, fighting back tears of anger and frustration. After a few minutes of waiting for his son to speak, Burt finally took the silence to be lasting and drove them home.

* * *

Mercedes and Quinn had stopped by the grocery store on their way home from another hospital checkup on the baby to pick up a few necessities, and Quinn had wandered off in search of pickles (one of her stranger cravings) when Mercedes had run into Puck in the canned goods aisle.

"Puck? Whoa, what'd you do to your hair?"

He shrugged, obviously a little uncomfortable, though Mercedes couldn't figure out why. "I got rid of it. It was really a spur-of-the-moment kinda thing."

"Oh," Mercedes said. "How are you holding up?"

He avoided her gaze. "I'm fine," he said quietly. "I'm doin' fine. You?"

She sighed. "I don't know. You do what you have to, I guess. I spend more time worrying about Quinn than I do about me."

He perked up at the mention of Quinn. "Is she here?"

"Yeah, she went to get something. She should be back in a sec." Mercedes studied him for a few moments as he made a show of studying the cans of tomato sauce on the shelf in front of him. Her eyes ran over the healing gash on his head. "What happened to your head?" she asked softly.

He looked down, growing more uneasy as their conversation progressed. "I, uh, got run into the wall during the…during the stampede." Mercedes frowned, her eyes full of concern and, yes, even a shred of fear for him. This was not the Puck she knew. The familiar Puck was brash, rude, blunt, sneering, and a little bit condescending. Mercedes swallowed as she realized that this new Puck scared her far more than the old Puck ever had.

"Puck? Hi," said a voice from behind them.

Puck's head shot up to see Quinn approaching with two jars of pickles. She placed them in their cart and smiled at Puck. "What'd you do with your mohawk?"

"Shaved it," he said simply.

"Looks good," she said, smiling again. Puck frowned. Quinn's smile was…off. Something wasn't right. "How's your vacation going?" she asked.

"Vacation?" he echoed. He glanced at Mercedes in confusion; she looked down sadly. He looked back to Quinn, and something clicked in his head. "Oh, Jesus," he muttered. "Quinn—" He was about to say something to try and jolt her out of her stupor, but the look that Mercedes shot him was full of warning, and he said, "It's going fine," instead.

"Good," Quinn replied. To Mercedes, she said, "I'm going to go give Finn's cell another try." Mercedes simply nodded and, for Puck's benefit, Quinn added, "We're thinking of meeting up with him for burgers after we finish shopping. You can come if you want." With that, she turned and walked away, pulling out her cell phone as she went.

Puck stared after her in shock. "Mercedes, how long has she been actin' like that?"

"Since she found out who got killed," Mercedes responded, pressing her lips together. "She's convinced herself that school's out because of a vacation, not a shooting. And it's not just Finn. She keeps trying to call Tina, too, and Hayley, that girl who was on the Cheerio squad." Mercedes sighed and shook her head. "She's in denial, and I don't know what to do."

"Jesus," Puck said again. "You think she'll come to the memorial?"

"I'm hoping she'll snap out of it by then. If not…" Mercedes trailed off. "I don't know. She's in pretty bad shape. Every time we drive by school, she looks somewhere else, she doesn't watch the news or read the papers…she doesn't listen to me, either."

"Maybe you should call a shrink," Puck suggested, still stunned.

Mercedes sighed heavily. "I might end up doing that. I can't think of anything else."

"I know how you feel," Puck said, and Mercedes was surprised at the amount of feeling beneath his words. "Good luck, Mercedes. I'll see you around."

* * *

A/N: So, I felt a little bad about waiting so long and then posting a short chapter, so I decided to post TWO short chapters in one day. Hope you liked it, please review. Reviews help me write better and faster.


	12. Chapter 12

_Chapter Twelve_

_"Shadows are harshest where there is only one lamp."  
_

As Puck drove home from the grocery store (he'd borrowed the family pickup truck), he couldn't get Quinn and her strangely perfect smile out of his head. He'd heard about stuff like this before, but he never thought he'd ever see it, and frankly, it scared him far more than the shooting had. What had Mercedes called it? Denial. Denying reality. Puck wondered just how desperate someone would have to be to reject what was real as he turned on the radio, hoping that there might be some music to take his mind off things for a while. Lord knows he needed it.

The first station was playing some Christian rock song that made him grimace and change the frequency. The second station had some guy humming a low folkish song with the words, "_And the big trucks roll by. They shake the ground like thunder, but there's nothing flashing under the Main Street Sky…_" Puck turned the knob again; the lyrics were too empty-sounding. The next station had another man singing a heavy rock song that Puck had never heard, but he quickly changed the channel again as soon as he heard "_Well, we were riding shotgun when you blew out your brain!_" Shaking his head to try and rid himself of the image that the song had brought to mind, he switched in desperation to the local station that usually played songs for the younger generations (he only knew about it because he was forced to listen to it every time Abby was in the car). They were playing a song from a puppet movie that Abby had dragged him to see when it first came out a few years back. "_Die, die, we all pass away, but don't wear a frown, 'cause it's really okay. You might try and hide, and you might try and pray—_"

Jesus, even the radio was out to get him. Puck hadn't even bothered to let the singer finish the line before hastily spinning the dial to his favorite rock station. If any radio station was safe, it would be this one. It was currently running commercials when Puck tuned in, but soon began a long jazzy piano solo that he was familiar with. Relaxing back against the driver's seat, he sang along lightly with the lyrics, humming when he didn't know the words.

"_The silicon chip inside her head got switched to overload, and nobody's gonna go to school today – she's gonna make them stay at home! And daddy doesn't understand it; he always said she was good as gold. And he can see no reasons, 'cause there are no reasons. What reason do you need to be shown?_"

Puck stopped singing, his throat closing up as the words began to slowly register. He'd heard this song plenty of times before, but it was…different now. The lyrics seemed to actually mean something this time. He turned up the volume to hear it better and listened more carefully, not noticing that his gaze was beginning to wander off the road.

"_And all the playing's stopped in the playground now; she wants to play with the toys awhile. And school's out early and soon we'll be learning, and the lesson today is how to die! And then the bullhorn crackles and the captain tackles (with the problems of the hows and whys). And he can see no reasons, 'cause there are no reasons. What reason do you need to die, die? Oh, oh, oh…_"

Puck stared at his radio in horror, suddenly understanding what the band was singing about but unable to believe what he was hearing, unable to accept that anybody would write such a cheery-sounding song about what he and his friends had gone through just a week ago (was it really a week?). His jaw dropped slightly as the chorus kicked in.

"_Tell me why – I don't like Mondays. Tell me why – I don't like Mondays. Tell me why – I don't like Mondays, I wanna shoot (ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh) the whole day down! Shoot it all down, down, down! Shoot it all down!_"

A horn blared and Puck's attention whipped back to the road ahead. As he saw that he'd let the truck wander into the opposite lane and an eighteen-wheeler was headed straight for him, his reflexes kicked in and he swerved back into his lane, narrowly avoiding the pending head-on collision. He downshifted and pulled the truck to a stop by the sidewalk, turning on the emergency flashers. By now, the song had ended and the radio announcers were leading some phony discussion about the weather. Puck gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white as he focused on steadying his breath and heartbeat. His blood roared in his ears, and if any of the other drivers on the road had come close enough to see his face, they probably would have thought he looked as if he'd just received a concussion. He certainly _felt_ concussed, complete with the accompanying nausea. He yanked open the truck door, leaning out and retching onto the pavement below.

"Shit," he groaned, spitting out the last of it and wiping his lip on his sleeve. He closed the door and rested his forehead against the steering wheel as he waited for his stomach to stop churning. He was about to shut off the radio, which was running another commercial break, when the advertisements ceased and a different song began with a simple piano melody. Puck paused, listening to the soothing sound with his fingers poised above the radio's _Off_ switch, readying to shut it down.

"_I need some sleep. It can't go on like this,_" the singer crooned. Puck's head lifted in interest. "_I've tried counting sheep, but there's one I always miss. Everyone says, I'm getting down too low. Everyone says, you just gotta let it go… You just gotta let it go… You just gotta let it go."_

Puck swallowed; he suddenly felt as if his throat were closing up and he was finding it difficult to breathe.

"_I need some sleep. Time to put the old horse down. I'm in too deep, and the wheels keep spinning round. Everyone says, I'm getting down too low. Everyone says, you just gotta let it go… You just gotta let it go… You just gotta let it go._"

Puck wiped his burning eyes and inhaled a shaky breath.

"_You just gotta let it go._"

He swallowed again, fighting as hard as he could to keep his eyes dry.

"_You just gotta let it go…_"

His teeth grated against one another and the muscles in his jaw were taut as a single dreaded tear worked its way out of his eye and down to his chin. After that, it was like the tiniest leak in the dam had released the reservoir. Puck slammed the heel of his palm into the rim of the steering wheel in frustration, then repeated the action as the drops poured freely down his cheeks. He curled his hands into fists to stop them from shaking.

"_You just gotta let it go…_"

A tapping on the window made Puck jump; he turned and hastily wiped the tear tracks off his face as he saw Kurt standing on the passenger side of his truck, looking concernedly inside. Puck reached over and rolled the window down, avoiding any eye contact with the younger Glee member. "Yeah, what?" Puck asked gruffly, his voice hoarse. He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve before switching the radio off.

Kurt leaned through the window on his elbows. "Are you all right, Puck?"

Puck coughed. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

"I'm _fine_," Puck snapped, watching the cars drive by. Looking anywhere but at Kurt. He heard the door open, and the truck jostled ever so slightly as it gained a new passenger. "Oh, for the love of—" Puck grumbled, knowing that Kurt had slid into the seat beside him but still refusing to look at him. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"No," Kurt replied simply, silently reminding Puck that even though it was Monday, school was not in session. As if Puck needed reminding.

"What do you want, Kurt?" he asked, trying to sound menacing and failing completely.

"It just looked like you could use someone to talk to."

"I don't need to talk to anyone, so please leave," Puck growled, taking the blunt route.

"Are you sure?" Kurt asked, not unkindly. "Because crying your heart out alone in your car is a pretty big red flag."

Puck let out a heartless laugh, quickly swiping at another couple of tears that were lagging behind the rest.

"I have to tell you something," Kurt said, finally grabbing the jock's attention enough to gain eye contact. Even though he knew that Puck had been crying, and from what he'd seen, pretty violently, it was still unsettling to see the usually overly-confident boy's eyes red and swollen, a few tear tracks that he'd missed still drying on his hardened face.

"If you have something to say, then say it," Puck pressed.

Kurt snapped back to reality. "Sorry," he said. "Um, the…the guy who shot everybody…" He took a deep breath to steady his nerves. "He told me he was going to do it. And I didn't say anything."

There was a long, painful silence as Puck processed this new piece of information. "…What?" he finally said.

Kurt sighed, falling against the seat back and watching the traffic. "I didn't tell anyone," he repeated. Somehow, it was easier to admit this to Puck than it had been to admit to Mercedes. "It's my fault. If I had just told somebody, _any_body…Finn and Tina would still be alive."

Puck watched him with a pensive frown for a moment. "Y'know what would've happened if you _had_ told someone?"

Kurt's head swiveled around, his brows knitted in confusion; it was his turn to stare. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm serious, Kurt."

The younger boy exhaled heavily. "All right, what?"

"If you _had_ told someone – a teacher, whoever – then they would've brought him in for a conference. Then they'd give him a lecture about how wrong it is to talk like that, and send him on his way. It wouldn't have made a difference. Parker still would've had a gun, and he still would've come to school last week, and he still would've done what he'd been plannin'. So…it's not your fault, Kurt." Puck chewed a piece of skin off the inside of his cheek and turned back to watching the cars obliviously go by. "It's mine."

"Yours?!" Kurt exclaimed. "How is it _your_ fault?"

Puck glanced at him, a little uncomfortable. "I stuffed him into a locker two weeks ago. The week before I tossed him in a dumpster. The week before that, I shut him into a port-o-john and tipped it. The week before _that_—"

"I get the idea," Kurt interrupted. "But how is it your fault?"

"Damn it, don't you get it? I helped make him into what he was!" Kurt flinched as Puck's voice rose angrily. "The paper said so! He had anxiety! From bein' bullied! They might as well have put my name in the headline."

The silence settled over them like a suffocating blanket as Puck fell quiet. The only sounds were the passing cars and Puck's uneven breathing. Finally, Kurt was the first one to speak.

"I guess there's plenty of guilt to go around," he said softly.

Puck turned to meet Kurt's sorrowful gaze. For once, there was no animosity between the two boys, only an understanding that though they couldn't have been more different, they did have one or two things in common. Puck would never have admitted it before everything had gone to Hell in a handbasket, but he figured that since Finn and Tina had been murdered, dumpsters and overturned port-o-johns had very little significance.

* * *

A/N: The song that really upsets Puck is called _I Don't Like Mondays_ by the Boomtown Rats, in case you didn't know it, and it actually was written about the 1979 shooting spree of Brenda Ann Spencer, a 16-year-old girl who shot at children playing on a school playground in San Diego, California. She injured nine people (eight children and one policeman), and killed two. In response to being asked about the reasons behind her actions, she simply said, "I just did it for fun. I don't like Mondays, and this livens up the day." The song itself is not an attempt at exploiting such events but rather an attempt to illustrate them, according to the song's writer Bob Geldof. It's actually a classic and it's a great song, but for someone who has actually endured a school shooting, I can imagine that it's incredibly hard to listen to without hitting one or two emotional rocks. _I Don't Like Mondays_ is also the song that gave me the idea for this story. If you don't know it, look it up.

A/N #2: The other songs that Puck hears are _Main Street Sky_ by Hugh Blumenfeld, _Mr. Rain_ (also by Blumenfeld), _Remains of the Day _by Danny Elfman, and _I Need Some Sleep_ by the Eels.


	13. Chapter 13

_Chapter Thirteen_

_"The wound hurts less than your desire to wound me."  
_

Rachel hugged her notebooks to her chest as she leaned idly against a wall of lockers in the crowded hallway, talking to Finn about their upcoming performance at Regionals before first period began. He was laughing at what she'd said about how Vocal Adrenaline didn't stand a chance against Mercedes' rendition of _And I'm Telling You_, and his laugh was making her heart flutter, as always. She was saying something along the lines of "You'll do well with _Jump_ – after all, that commercial we did was a hit…" when a deafening _crack!_ ripped over the school like thunder. The hordes of students clogging the hall all ducked or flinched or yelped in surprise, and there was a momentary silence before another _crack_ tore through the air. At the second shot, a gradually-swelling tidal wave of screams rolled down one corridor and into another, eventually flowing and crashing into every corner of the building. And with the screams came panic. All it once it seemed like the swarm of people had multiplied tenfold as their sheer mass fought against itself, each of them fighting to get out of the school first, to escape the sudden hellhole McKinley had become.

His eyes wide and his face suddenly pale, Finn wrapped an arm around Rachel's shoulders, lifting her from where she'd tumbled on the floor and half-pulling half-pushing her around the corner and through the door to the choir room. He swung around, slamming the door shut against the raging river of screaming people outside and leaning back against it as several more shots pounded against the walls. He'd already lost count of how many they'd heard.

As the frenzied thundering of feet continued outside, Finn and Rachel took shelter at the back of the room in the shadows (because of the early hour, the lights had not yet been turned on). Rachel curled up into as tight a ball as she could manage, Finn's long arms wrapped around her protectively, though he was shaking just as much as she was, if not more. They remained silent as the panicked rampage carried on outside, every few seconds a new round of shots sending a fresh wave of screams beating against the doors, making Finn's arms tighten reflexively. Any other day, any other _reason_ for their current situation, and Rachel would have reveled in the feeling of being held by him, but not today.

After what seemed like an eternity, there were no sounds from outside the choir room walls. Rachel thought she might have heard a faint siren in the distance, but the only noise she could focus on was her shaky breathing. She briefly noted that Finn's chest wasn't moving – he was holding his breath. Neither of them knew how long they remained unmoving.

Finn's lungs abruptly sucked in air and his arms tightened in a subconscious warning. Rachel's heart leapt into her mouth as she watched a shadow pass over the door's narrow window, silent footsteps echoing. A short but menacing series of sliding clicks signaled the cocking of a gun (she only recognized the sound from the movies – they'd gotten it surprisingly accurate), and she clutched at Finn's torso, not wanting to picture what was to come. As the doorknob slowly turned, Rachel fleetingly wondered at how suddenly this day had gone from better than normal to a literal nightmare.

She couldn't help but let out a tiny squeak of crushing fear when the door finally swung open, revealing a gangly boy standing with a sort of slumped determination that Rachel quickly realized was the single most horrifying thing she'd ever seen. The weapon was slung by a strap around his torso, and he held it in a casual way that made her blood run cold. She thought that Finn's arms might break one or two of her ribs at this point, but she didn't dare make another noise. Had the boy even seen them?

"Stand up."

Yes, he had.

The gun suddenly whipped up, its nose aimed directly at them. Rachel let out a strangled cry, followed by a sob as Finn flinched. "I said _stand up!_" the boy ordered, his voice seething but terrifyingly level.

Finn slowly got to his feet, gently pulling Rachel up with him. His hands were still gripping her shoulders, and he stood a little in front of her, shielding her somewhat from the boy's deadly line of sight. "You don't have to do this," Finn managed to utter, his voice shaking like a bad phone connection.

"Yes, I do," the boy said through clenched teeth. His forehead was covered in sweat. "Get down off the bleachers. Stand in the middle of the floor."

Finn moved slowly, one hand reaching out towards the boy in a feeble attempt to placate him, the other arm guiding Rachel, who was still crying into his chest. The gun followed them. "Please, Wayne…" Finn said, trying to muster up enough volume to reach above a whisper. "Just – just leave Rachel out of this…"

"Rachel?" the boy echoed angrily, his burning eyes flicking to her for a second. "What makes you think she has anything to do with this?"

Finn had no idea how to respond to that. His lungs shuddered, his heart knocking painfully against his ribs.

"Step away from him," was the next order.

Rachel clung tighter to Finn, but without taking his eyes off Wayne and the gun he disentangled her arms from around him and slowly pushed her out of his reach, as if he himself was afraid to let her go. "Finn, no…" she whimpered, fighting to stay by his side.

"Stay out of this," Wayne growled at her. His eyes were frighteningly focused, staring her down and wordlessly challenging her to see if he wouldn't do to her what he'd done to who knows how many others.

"Please, Rach…" Finn said softly, not looking away from Wayne's finger poised dangerously over the trigger. "Do what he says."

As she finally, reluctantly, moved back a few steps, Wayne's eyes refocused on Finn. Another choked-off sob made its way out of her throat as the gun raised, its nose brushing the underside of Finn's jaw and neck, just above his Adam's apple. Finn closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, swallowing as he felt the cold metal sweep lightly over his skin.

"You and your fellow Neanderthals have had the last laugh," Wayne said.

Finn's eyes reopened when the gun withdrew, and his gaze met Wayne's for a briefly hopeful second before the gun kicked back with a piercing explosion, sending everything into slow motion. Rachel screamed, frozen as she watched Finn crumple to the ground, his face contorted in severe pain and his hands clutching his abdomen, dark red blood rapidly seeping out from between his fingers. His legs twisted and the tendons in his neck stood out a sickening distance as he let out a strangled groan, curling on the floor. He lifted his trembling hands from his side in an attempt to see the wound, crying out again, but there was too much blood to see the actual damage. Rachel was still screaming.

Wayne took two steps forward, standing over Finn as the bloodstain on his clothes grew wider and wider, a few drops sliding onto the floor. Finn's head lifted, just barely, his breathing labored. Wayne raised his foot, placing it against the side where the bullet had entered and giving Finn a kick, eliciting yet another strangled cry of pain. Now that Finn was on his back, Wayne re-aimed the gun directly between his eyes.

"Please!" Rachel wailed, unable to move from where she stood. "Please! Don't hurt him!"

"Too late."

"_NO!_"

The shot was louder than all the rest, and seemed to batter against her ears again and again and again. Finn's body jerked and then was still. Rachel was no longer even aware that the screams filling the room were coming from her.

Wayne let the gun fall back into its original position, hanging relaxedly across his abdomen, gave a small smile to Rachel, then turned on his heel and strolled out of the room. Rachel fell to her knees beside Finn, her chest heaving and her entire body quaking. She struggled to pull him towards her so that he was lying across her lap, her hands clutching as his blazer as his still-hot blood soaked into her clothes. The latest bullet had, because of the kick of the gun, not hit him where Wayne had intended, instead tearing a deep gash along the right side of his head from the temple to the back. Finn's hair was dripping as the laceration bled profusely. Rachel didn't bother to even notice the tears that were freely flowing down her cheeks, taking her mascara and eyeliner with them, as she cradled him in her arms. His eyes were only half-closed.

With one hand on the side of his neck below his ear, she lifted his head, letting her forehead rest against his, silently but fiercely praying that he'd be okay. She froze when she felt what she'd been hoping for. Moving her hand a little ways down, towards his trachea, she waited, holding her breath. There! She let out a shaky sigh, unable to stop her mouth from stretching into a momentary smile of relief. He had a pulse. It was slow and faint, but it was there.

"Hold on, Finn," she whispered, planting a quick kiss on his forehead and gently pushing him back onto the floor. By this time, there was a significant pool of crimson smeared across the floor, and Finn's skin was getting closer to white every second. "Hold on, I'm going to go get help. You're going to make it."

* * *

Rachel jerked awake, gasping for air. Her dad Ben, who'd apparently been attempting to wake her, jumped back a little. "You okay, honey?" he asked, placing a hand on her shoulder.

She gave a shaky nod, still trying to slow her heartbeat. Every time she'd tried to sleep, she always was immediately sent right back to last Monday. She could only wonder why her subconscious was subjecting her to watch it over and over again and hope that maybe one day it might fade.

"I didn't want to wake you up," Ben said, sitting on the bed by Rachel's ankles. "But there's a friend of yours here. He seems…upset."

Rachel took a deep breath to steady her nerves, nodding again. "Of course. Can you tell him I'll be right down?"

Ben smoothed her hair comfortingly before walking back downstairs. Rachel sighed and dragged herself out of bed. The sunlight made her room extremely bright at this time of day (she'd been sleeping until the early afternoon most days since the incident), and she pulled the blinds down to block it out. Casting a glance at herself in the mirror, she realized she looked extremely haggard. She hadn't exercised or worn makeup or cared about what she wore in days. Now, running an agitated hand through her tangled hair to get rid of the initial bed head, she assembled an outfit that she'd only worn on the few Sundays when she'd not gone out. Garbed in simple knee-length sixties-style shorts and a lumpy gray hoodie, she finally made her way downstairs.

She wasn't really sure who she'd expected to be sitting at her kitchen table when she walked in, but it certainly hadn't been Kurt. He was staring at his hands, and he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks.

"Hi," she said.

His head shot up; he hadn't heard her come in. "Hi."

She dropped into the seat adjacent. "What's going on?" she asked.

"I, uh… I just ran into Puck a while ago. He was…really torn up."

"What do you mean?"

"I found him sobbing in his car by the side of the road," Kurt said simply.

Rachel stared at him. The mental picture of Puck sobbing would have unsettled anybody who knew him, and she was no exception. "Why? What happened?"

Kurt shrugged. "I don't know, he wouldn't tell me any specifics."

Rachel's brows knitted. "Kurt, you didn't come here to tell me about Puck, did you? I mean, I'm just as concerned for him as you are, but it's not exactly enough to merit a trip across down when you have a cell phone that works."

Kurt's eyes fell.

"What is it?" she asked softly.

After a few long seconds in which the volume of the kitchen wall clock ticking seemed to be amplified at least tenfold, Kurt finally spoke. "Did he suffer?"

Rachel froze up. Of all the questions Kurt could have possibly asked, that was the last she'd been expecting.

"I have to know," he said, his eyes swimming. "Was he in pain?"

She sighed, not bothering to ask how he found out that she'd seen Finn as he was shot down. "No," she finally said. She could see the overwhelming guilt play across his features; he didn't need to know just how much pain Finn had been in. "No, it was very quick."

Kurt's eyes spilled over, and he smiled a little. "Thank you," he said, almost inaudibly. Before she knew it, he was out the door.

* * *

A/N: Wow, I was actually choking up a little while I was writing this. Please let me know what you think.


	14. Chapter 14

_Chapter Fourteen_

_"No matter how much time I save, I have only now."  
_

For the past week, Matt had been isolated. He'd shut himself in his room, avoided his parents, refused to answer the phone. He couldn't even remember what he'd spent most of his time doing, but he was pretty sure that most of his energy was pouring into trying to block out the echoes of the shots in their finality. But on Tuesday, after eight days of solitude, his mother knocked on the door, gently insisting that he take a call since it was from Mike's parents. And now, he was driving across town to Mike's house, barely paying any attention to the road ahead, his thumbs drumming anxiously on the rim of the wheel.

Mike's mother let him in, and without greeting her Matt took the stairs two at a time. "Mike?" he called. No answer. He knocked on Mike's bedroom door, noticing that the poster of Jake Delhomme from the Cleveland Browns was gone, a torn corner left held in place by a thumbtack. "Mike, open up. Come on, man."

There was still no answer. Finally, Matt opened the door himself, his jaw dropping when he found the room almost completely destroyed. Posters ripped off the walls and torn to shreds, mattress overturned and thrown against the wall, closet contents chaotically strewn across the floor, bureau drawers pulled out and dumped (two of them smashed), glass shards scattered over the carpet and glinting in the sunlight. Mike was sitting slumped in his desk chair, staring out through the jagged hole he'd put through the windowpane, his baseball bat limply held in his hand and dragging on the floor.

"Jesus, Mike," Matt breathed. "What'd you do all this for?"

Mike didn't respond, didn't even turn around or acknowledge that Matt was there.

"Mike, I swear to God, if you don't say something now, I will—"

"Tina's dead."

Matt stopped. The two words had been uttered so quietly that he wasn't sure he'd heard them. "Yeah, she is…" he said slowly as he stepped over the destruction, glass crunching beneath his shoes like gravel in someone's teeth. He came to stand beside his friend, leaning back against the wall by the desk. Mike's eyes never strayed from the world outside, his face shadowed in the sunlight. "Mike, what's this about?" Matt asked.

"It should have been me," Mike whispered.

Matt's brows came together. "The hell you talking about?"

A couple drops of water left trails down Mike's face, making Matt's heart skip a beat or two. He'd never seen Mike even upset, let alone crying.

"He was aiming for me," Mike said, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

"What?"

Matt jumped back, his eyes wide when Mike's head suddenly twisted in his direction, meeting Matt's startled gaze with his haunted one. "He was aiming for _me_," he said again, his voice stretched far too thin. "And he hit her. She shouldn't have died."

"Jesus, Mike," Matt said again.

Mike turned back to the window. In his head, he could still hear Tina's tinkling laugh as they walked to Chemistry together, joking about being the only two Asians in the club. Then the shot. Then the short-lived look of surprise on Tina's doll-like features. Then her collapsing against him. Then her blood seeping into his hoodie. He dropped the baseball bat and leaned forward, cradling his head in his hands.

Matt sighed, rubbing a wide palm over his scalp. "Okay, you gotta get out of here, man."

Mike's head raised in confusion, his eyes swollen.

"Come on, I'm serious. You need to get out of the house," Matt said, grabbing the taller boy by the arm and pulling him to his feet, picking up the baseball bat with his other hand. Despite a few feeble protests from Mike, Matt practically shoved him downstairs, out into the sunlight, and into the passenger seat of his car. After a brief talk with Mike's mom to let her know they were going out and not to worry, Matt tossed the baseball bat into the back seat and pulled out onto the street.

Mike was apparently too tired to even ask where they were going, because he didn't say a word for the entire drive. When they finally reached their destination, the two boys climbed out of the car (Mike was moving extremely slowly, which was unsettling in itself), and the only thing Mike could say when he saw the poorly-maintained field was, "Um…baseball season's not 'til spring…"

Matt clapped his friend on the shoulder and retrieved the bat from the car. "I figured as long as you had to hit something…" he trailed off with a shrug. With a nudge to Mike, the two of them walked down the hill to the empty baseball diamond, brown in the late autumn.

Mike shook his head morosely. "This is stupid, man."

"Listen, Mike, if this doesn't work at all, then feel free to say so and I'll take you home. But if where you really wanna be is in your hellhole of a room, then you don't need me, you need a shrink," Matt said.

The Asian boy sighed, scanning the deserted field. "You didn't bring a ball," he finally said.

Matt couldn't help but smile a little at that. "There's always a few lying around," he replied. "Come on, I'm pitching."

* * *

Emma was slow to wake on Wednesday. The early morning sunlight was slatted through her orange curtains, keeping her body warm beneath the light quilt, and she kept her eyes closed. She could feel Will's arm draped over her shoulders, his warm breath on the back of her neck; he was still asleep. Emma sighed and moved slightly closer to him. She wanted to savor this feeling for as long as she could. Because, after everything that had gone wrong in the last week and a half, she needed to be able to cling to something she _knew_ would make her feel good. To help her remember that the world wasn't entirely a bad place to live in.

When she'd first walked into school that fateful Monday, Emma had been feeling better than usual, less afraid of the coat of germs that covered every surface, less unhappy about working with a woman like Sue Sylvester, and she was lighter on her feet. She'd even been humming while she conducted her morning scrub on everything in her office. With a tiny smile that no one would have seen even if they'd been in the room, she'd known that the feeling was because of the man who had finally seen her as more than a friend, the man who had slept in her bed the night before (they hadn't had sex yet, she was still too nervous, but at least he was more than willing to wait for her to be ready), the man who had driven her to work that morning. Will could almost make her forget that germs even existed, and that was saying a _lot_.

But then everything changed. In only a second, her smile had disappeared and she'd stood frozen with one hand clutching the wipe she'd been using to clean the window, her eyes growing wider than natural as she listened to the screams increase in volume as the students and faculty alike began to run past her office. They were all running in the same direction, all with the same panicked expressions, tripping over each other each time another round of shots pierced the air. She'd begun to hyperventilate as she realized what was happening. Before long, Will had tumbled into the room after somehow detaching himself from the screaming mob, his eyes filled with more fear and anguish than she had ever seen.

"We gotta go," he'd said breathlessly, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards the door.

She'd gone with him, only because she didn't know what else to do. She knew that if she'd been thinking clearly, she would have reasoned that they hide in her office closet, where she kept backup cleaning supplies and motivational posters. Before they reached the door, however, Will had stopped in his tracks, watching with horror as the boy with the gun rounded the corner and came into view. And, from the other direction, so did Sue. Emma's hands flew up and gripped Will's arm, not wanting to watch but unable to look away. They could easily hear Sue talking through the glass, partly because it was thin to begin with and partly because the stampede was over. Emma prayed under her breath that all the kids had made it out safely, but she'd had a sinking feeling in her heart that they hadn't.

"Come on, Parker, you don't wanna do this," Sue was saying. In spite of all the chaos and terror, Emma couldn't help but be amazed at the sudden change in the coach's demeanor. Her eyes were still unkind, but they were also full of alarm, her hands held out in front of her. Wayne was only a few feet from her, the gun aimed directly at Sue's face. "You think that just 'cause you're a little upset that you have the right to come to school and put a couple of bullets in your friends? Life doesn't work that way, buddy."

"What makes you think I have friends?" Wayne had snarled back.

"Well, not with an attitude like that," Sue snipped, and Emma suddenly wondered if all the stories about her being in the military were true. "And lemme tell ya, a gun's not gonna help you at all. So I'll make you a deal. You give me the gun and all the extra bullets you're carrying, and I'll let you walk on out of here."

"The school's surrounded by cops," Wayne snapped. "I'm not going to walk out of here. Not alive, anyways."

Sue gave him an are-you-retarded look. "Well, then, what was the point?"

"To send a message."

"Word of advice – letters work better. Now, people are just gonna denounce you as crazy, like all the other kids who decided to bring guns to school and kill their classmates. Maybe with a side order of daddy issues, if you're lucky."

Apparently, Sue had hit a nerve with that comment, because Wayne hadn't even hesitated before firing. Will jumped back and Emma let out a shriek as blood spattered across the window, partially blocking their view. All they could see was that Sue had definitely fallen to the floor. Emma's hands grew even tighter on Will's arm as Wayne turned, looking through the glass door directly at them. She shut her eyes, bracing herself for the coming shots. She couldn't help but be mildly surprised when the shot did come, but she felt no pain, and she was pretty sure that Will was still standing there. She cracked open her eyes when she heard Will's choked-up "Oh, God…" and gasped when she saw Wayne's body limp on the ground, dark blood pooling beneath him.

Emma didn't know how long they stood there, rooted to the spot and wondering just how many seats would be empty in the classrooms once school resumed. But eventually, Will spoke, his voice shaking and his eyes red. "I…I think the worst is over," he said. "Come on, let's get out of here."

They'd made it only to the door when Emma halted. "No, Will, I can't go out there," she'd squeaked, her eyes wide and staring at the blood that coated the floor.

Will understood immediately. "Okay, uh, I'll – I'll carry you."

"Will—" she'd started to protest.

"Emma, we have to leave."

She'd taken a deep breath, closing her eyes and nodding. She trusted him. She'd always trusted him, and there was no one else in the world she'd want more to rescue her from a situation like this. Once they were out of the building, Will had gone and directed the EMTs to the hallways where Sue lay, and then they'd gone straight home. Later they'd found out that Sue was fine (she'd been shot in the shoulder, which wasn't enough to kill but more than enough to knock her out for several minutes).

And now, Emma was lying in bed, unmoving so as not to wake up Will so that he could stay oblivious to the world around him for as long as possible. Eventually, though, he began to stir, and she rolled over onto her other side so they were facing each other. Will smiled at her, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, and she watched, like she had every morning since that Monday, while his expression changed as he remembered.

Still, even though they'd watched a boy no older than fifteen shoot someone and then shoot himself, even though they'd cried and grieved for the lost students together, even though Emma knew for a fact that many more kids would be coming to see her after school resumed, it was nice to be able to wake up with the sunlight on their faces, and know that there was still some good left.

* * *

A/N: I'm actually not a huge fan of this chapter, but please leave a review anyways.


	15. Chapter 15

_Chapter Fifteen_

_"A person can die trying to stay alive."  
_

Puck groaned unhappily as what felt like a sack of potatoes came crashing down on top of him, disturbing him from an only-somewhat restful sleep. "Wake up!" shrilled the voice of his little sister, as she bounced on his back.

"No," he grumbled into his pillow, refusing to open his eyes.

"No_ah_!" she whined.

"Leave me alone," he said, his words muffled as he grabbed another pillow and pulled it down over his ears.

Abby snatched the pillow from him and tossed it on the floor. "Mom says you _have_ to get up," she said, a hint of glee in her voice at being sent to perform such an important task as waking her older brother.

Puck frowned, still not opening his eyes. "Why?"

"'Cause your _girlfriend'_s here," she said, flashing a toothless grin.

He sighed, finally cracking his eyelids. Even with the blinds down and a cloudy sky outside, the room was still too bright. "Who? Quinn?"

Abby giggled, rolling off him and onto her feet on the floor, surprisingly nimble for the bony nine-year-old that she was. Puck had suspected on more than one occasion that she was secretly a ninja, as she'd taken a liking to zipping in and out of his room to bother him without him catching her, and several of her favorite items from amongst his possessions had somehow vanished into her toy box without him having left the room. "No, silly," she exclaimed. "The _other_ one."

Puck's brows knitted together as he groggily pushed the covers aside. "Santana?"

Abby wrinkled her nose. "Ew, she's not one of your girlfriends, is she?"

Rolling his eyes, Puck decided to stop guessing and take the direct route. "Abby, who's here?"

"I dunno her name," Abby said with a shrug. "But she's pretty, and she said she knows you from Glee. Whatever that is."

Puck's brow cleared in comprehension. "Oh," he said, pulling a shirt on. He then ushered Abby out of his room and headed downstairs, greeting Rachel at the door. "What're you doin' here, Berry?" he asked.

"Oh, I just stopped by to give you this," she replied, pulling a package out of her coat pocket. She held it out to him; it was neatly wrapped, and suspiciously book-shaped. At his apprehensive glance of confusion at the parcel, she gave a small smile and said softly, "Happy birthday, Noah."

He stopped short, regarding her with a look of shock. He'd never told her or anyone else at school when his birthday was. Only Finn had known… Oh. Duh. Tentatively, he reached out and took it from her, mumbling an embarrassed thank you. Rachel looked on as he tore off the wrapping paper to reveal (surprise, surprise) a book, entitled _Contemporary Modern Poetry – An Anthology_ with its cover worn and its spine creased. Several highlighted post-its stuck out of the pages at the top, and Rachel said, "A lot of the poems in there have helped me through hard times. I took the liberty of marking all of the ones I thought might apply to you, but the rest are also good. I just hope that they can help you as much as they've been able to help me."

Puck looked at her with a sense of renewed respect, which was an unusual feeling for him. "Thanks," he said again, this time sincerely. Even if poetry was the absolute last thing he'd ever read, he was grateful for it, and he truly did appreciate the sentiment behind the gesture. "Do, uh…do you wanna come in?"

She smiled again. "Oh, no thank you." There was a pause, and then she spoke with a new hint of determination. "Let's go out. Bring your guitar."

* * *

"This is really beautiful," Rachel exclaimed as she climbed out of Puck's truck and took in the view. They'd driven about twenty miles beyond the outskirts of town to Twin Lakes Campground, which, because of the late season, was entirely unoccupied. It was lightly forested – just enough to make the air smell heavily of pine and maple – and the lake was smooth and glassy beneath the cloudy sky.

"Be prettier if it was sunny," Puck said absentmindedly as he struggled to pull his guitar case out of the back seat. With one last tug, the case swung out and he staggered to regain his balance. "My dad and I used to come out here a lot."

"It's beautiful," Rachel said again as she retrieved the bag of snacks that they'd picked up from a gas station on the way (they had wordlessly avoided the slushie machines). They walked away from the truck and took a seat on the bench of a picnic table close to the lake's edge, leaning back against the table with their shoes on the muddy sand. Puck munched on a bag of Cheetos while Rachel delicately sipped on a Diet Pepsi and a V of geese flew overhead, heading south as the winter fast approached. Puck was surprised at how comfortable he felt in the silence between him and Rachel; maybe it was just that they were outdoors, but they'd never had an un-awkward pause in their conversation before, and it was a nice improvement.

"Are you going to the memorial on Sunday?" Rachel asked after about half an hour.

Puck took a moment to answer. "I dunno," he said. "You think I should?"

"What kind of a question is that?!" Rachel exclaimed.

"Never mind. Forget I asked," he said, tossing the Cheetos bag into the nearby trashcan. "Yes, I'm going."

"You should say something," she said softly.

Puck frowned. "Meaning?"

"You know, like a speech. In memory of Finn. I bet Artie or Mercedes will do one for Tina."

He looked out across the water, suddenly nervous. "Uh, Rachel… I don't do speeches…"

Rachel's anger meter shot up again. "And Wayne Parker doesn't bring guns to school," she snapped. "If ever there was a time to change your ways, Noah, this would be it. You _know _that if the roles were reversed, Finn would have done one for you in a heartbeat."

He sighed, watching another flock of geese disappear into the gray distance. "I just dunno what I'd say."

She paused, then suggested, "Well, what if you sang something?"

"What?"

"It'd be the perfect tribute," Rachel reasoned, looking more and more pleased with her idea. "Since Finn was in Glee, and you're in Glee…it makes perfect sense."

"Rachel, I am not gonna get up in front of the whole town to sing when everyone else'll be mournin'."

"Oh, come _on_, Noah. I never said anything about the song being happy. That would just be in bad taste," she said. "Just something that fits how much you – and we – miss him. Maybe Mercedes and/or Artie could put something like that together for Tina as well."

Puck decided to put a stop to this before her plans became too far advanced. He knew all too well that when she reached a certain point in her thinking process, there was no turning back. "Well, Artie's not gonna be singin' shit," he said.

He could practically see the gears in her head screech to a halt as she turned and regarded him with a look of confused worry. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.

Puck shifted on the bench, leaning forward and resting his elbows against his knees. "I paid a visit to Santana when I found out what happened to her, and she told me that Artie's gone mute or somethin'."

"_What?_"

"I dunno the details, Berry," he said defensively. "That's all she told me, okay? She said Artie stopped talkin' when he found out about Tina."

Rachel fell silent, clamping her lips shut in agitation. She shook her head. "Mercedes will do something, then. Or I will. If Artie hasn't snapped of it by Sunday," she said with finality.

The pair fell into a long silence less comfortable than before. Rachel finished her soda and placed the can back into the bag to be recycled later. "Do you want to practice?" she asked.

"Practice what?"

"Your song. For the memorial," she said, as if it had been obvious. "You _did_ bring your guitar, after all."

"Oh, uh. I guess…"

Rachel sat up straighter. She was always more content when she had something concrete to work on. "Any ideas?"

Puck thought for a moment, then grabbed his guitar and strummed a few chords. The song was really meant to be sung with more instruments and with backup vocals too, but he figured that with Rachel as his only audience, it didn't matter that much. After the introductory music, he began to sing the melody. "_Wait, I'm wrong – I should've done better than this. Please, I'll be strong… I'm finding it hard to resist. So show me what I'm looking for…_" He strummed the guitar with more energy as the chorus began. "_Save me, I'm lost. Oh Lord, I've been waiting for you. I'll pay any cost – save me from being confused. Show me what I'm looking for. Show me what I'm looking for…_"

Rachel gave a sad smile as she listened. She'd heard this song on the radio before and, while it wasn't really a song that was right for his voice, it seemed to be right for _him_.

"_Don't let go – I've wanted this far too long… Mistakes become regrets; I've learned to love abuse. Please show me what I'm looking for…_" He sang the chorus again, and Rachel watched, slightly amazed, as he seemed to lose himself in the words. For the first time, she saw just how much of himself he must have lost in such a short period of time. And it wasn't just the absent mohawk – he was someone entirely different on the inside, too. He was someone she didn't know.

* * *

A/N: I'm a little dissatisfied with these two scenes, but I wanted a chapter that didn't have people screaming or sobbing left and right. Please leave a review. The song Puck sings is called _Show Me What I'm Looking For_ by Carolina Liar.


	16. Chapter 16

_Chapter Sixteen_

_"Who gives his heart away too easily must have a heart under his heart."  
_

The hospital lobby was particularly busy on Thursday, Santana observed as she hobbled around, testing her mobility – the cast was still on, but she was finally allowed to be out of bed and on her feet (er, foot) with the help of crutches. Soon, she would be able to go home, but now she clumped from floor to floor, hospital wing to hospital wing, willing to do anything but be in her goddamn bed. Eventually, though, the nurse who'd delivered the news of Artie's relocation (whose name, Santana had learned, was Maarit) came to find her and bring her back to her ward.

Santana scoffed when Maarit approached her. (What kind of name was Maarit, anyway?) "Why do I have to go back?" she asked, noticing that her voice was dangerously close to whining. If there was one thing Santana _never_ did, it was whining.

Maarit (Oh. Right. It was Finnish.) placed her hands on her hips, giving the former cheerleader a stern look that Mama Bear Mercedes would have envied. "Because you're recovering from a bullet wound, honey, and if you keep running around on your crutches, you're going to exhaust yourself and then pass out in the lobby, and that would be an inconvenience to the hospital staff."

Santana quirked a thin eyebrow. "_Fine_," she said, rolling her eyes.

Maarit grinned, guiding Santana back to the elevators. "Don't give me that look, kiddo, I'm just doing my job."

"Whatever." In truth, Santana was glad that Maarit seemed to have taken a special interest in her; she needed to know that _somebody_ could stand to be around her besides her mom and sister. After Artie had left, Maarit had given Santana routine updates on his condition from day to day – nothing specific, just that he was generally improving despite having stopped all verbal communication – and had occasionally spent her lunch hour in Santana's ward, just filling the time with idle conversation to distract her from worrying constantly about Artie.

But, while it was nice to talk to Maarit, worrying about Artie is exactly what Santana spent the rest of her time doing. She was shocked to realize that what she wanted more than anything now was to march (or hobble, either one) down that hallway, enter Artie's ward, and rattle off a long string of apologies. Which was another thing that Santana Lopez did _not_ do. God, this hospital was messing with her head.

The nightmares had also persisted, growing worse every night. It was almost always different – sometimes Artie would just scream at her from the bed, sometimes he would actually go so far as to kill her – but the fear/guilt/sick/shock factor remained the same during each version of the dream. And the fact that she kept having it scared Santana far more than the dream's content.

Maarit finally delivered Santana to her room, helping her climb back into bed and rearrange the blankets comfortably around the bulky cast. Once she was snug, Maarit spoke with a soft, motherly tone. "Listen, hon… You need to stop beating yourself up about this."

Santana, a little bit shocked at how abruptly the nurse had broached the subject, did her best to shoot a warning glare at her. But if Maarit had seen the look, she didn't show it.

"It's really not your fault. Any of it."

"I know that," Santana huffed.

"No, you don't," Maarit stated firmly, holding Santana's gaze. "The shooting isn't your fault, and Artie's silence isn't your fault."

"I know," Santana said again, with more force.

Maarit sighed, sitting lightly on the edge of the bed. "Look…before I went into nursing, I was studying to be a psychologist. Long story short, I had nearly all my credits, then I did something stupid and didn't get my degree. But I still remember everything. You haven't cried since it happened, have you?"

Santana gritted her teeth as everything she wanted to say bottlenecked at the tip of her tongue. She wanted to tell Maarit that she didn't know her, she wanted to yell that the older woman _couldn't_ delve into Santana's inner workings or feelings, that she didn't have a _right_. But she said nothing, and Maarit continued.

"That's what I thought," the nurse said, her sky-blue eyes full of sympathy. "It's not your fault."

Santana swallowed as her throat constricted. She would _not_ cry. Not in front of someone else. Not in front of Maarit.

"Sweetie, it is _not_ your fault," Maarit said again. She laid a hand on top of Santana's, and Santana surprised herself by not withdrawing it. "I promise you, it's not."

The ex-cheerleader clamped her lips tight to stop her chin from trembling. She rubbed her eyes, which were once again burning. Frowning and lowering her hand, she was shocked to find that it was wet. She could feel a couple drops wind their way down her cheeks. "Don't toy with me," Santana tried to hiss. Her voice was shaking too much to get her tone right, however, and it ended up sounding more desperate than warning.

"I'm not toying with you, honey," Maarit said, squeezing Santana's hand lightly. "You need to understand this. _None_ of this is because of you."

Santana snatched her hand back from the nurse. "Don't _toy _with me," she said again, louder and through clenched teeth, a couple of salty tears running into her mouth.

"Sweetie—"

"Stop _calling _me that!" Santana shouted. "Get _out!_" She kicked at Maarit with her good leg, trying to get the nurse off the bed, but Maarit had already stood and wrapped her arms around Santana's shoulders in a strong embrace. "Get _off_ me!" Santana screamed, thrashing against Maarit's hold. But the nurse had a broad build and was able to hold Santana as she cursed and shrieked and fought, drawing the attention of more than a few passersby outside of the room.

Slowly, though, Santana tired, her struggle becoming weaker, and she eventually collapsed against Maarit's chest, her chest heaving as she sobbed. She couldn't breathe or speak, and Maarit simply held her gently, a hand rubbing comforting circles on Santana's back as she gradually let the entire weight that she had been bearing for almost the last two weeks lighten.

After several long minutes, Maarit's scrub shirt had grown wet, and Santana's skin was tingling from the lack of oxygen, and she felt dizzy. Her violent crying reduced to hiccups and sniffs and her face blotched far beyond her usual impeccable beauty, Santana was released to fall back against her pillows, exhausted. Maarit brushed her hair back, wiping a couple of late tears off of Santana's cheek and giving a sympathetic smile.

"It'll all be better soon," she assured the girl softly. "I know it doesn't feel like it. But it will."

Santana nodded with a sniff, looking down.

Maarit gave her shoulder a rub and stood up. "If you need to talk again, you know how to reach me."

Santana was asleep before Maarit had left the room.

* * *

A little after midnight on Thursday night, the Hummels' kitchen smelled strongly of coffee. Burt Hummel sat at the table, staring into space with a cup of java, black and long gone cold, held loosely in his hands. The only sound was the ticking of the clock and the slow, methodical _drip, drip, drip_ of the faucet that needed fixing. Burt absentmindedly took a sip of his coffee, grimaced at the awful taste, then stood and dumped the cup into the sink. He glanced at the clock. 12:49.

He sighed and headed for the stairs to the basement to check on Kurt. Peeping in on his sleeping son hadn't been a habit since his wife died, but with Kurt's nightmares occurring more and more frequently… Burt decided that visits to Dr. Kendrick would have to become a regular thing, as much as Kurt hated it.

Stifling a yawn, Burt descended the stairs to his son's basement bedroom, rubbing his eyes sleepily. He stopped in his tracks on the landing.

The bed was unoccupied.

"Kurt?" he called, looking towards the bathroom door. The light wasn't on. The covers on the bed were wrinkled and tossed, though the rest of the room seemed to be in order.

"Kurt!" he called again, poking his head into the bathroom just to double check. Now fully awake, Burt turned on his heel and took the stairs two at a time, shouting his son's name into the empty hallways of the house.

* * *

A/N: This could either be very anticlimactic or end very badly.... Please leave a review.


	17. Chapter 17

_Chapter Seventeen_

_"The worst helplessness is forgetting there is help."__  
_

For the last eleven days, Mercedes had occupied her every waking moment with her new housemate and making sure that Quinn had someone there for her during the morning sickness, during the doctors' appointments, during the long nights when she couldn't sleep because her back was hurting and she was left to think about just how alone she was in the dark. Mercedes never let her think she was alone for long, though. She'd be there every single night, with her soft "Hey, Quinn" and her expert Mama-Bear tactics.

But even Mercedes was growing tired of it. It wasn't like she was about to kick Quinn to the curb – because really, she couldn't see how _anyone_ could do that – but dealing with Quinn's denial was almost as emotionally taxing as dealing with the reality that Quinn refused to accept. So, late on Thursday night, while Quinn slept fitfully in the next room, Mercedes lay wide awake, her eyes tracing the lines on her ceiling illuminated by the light of the full moon outside. She considered going to a therapist for help, but she wanted to keep that as a last resort, because she didn't want to believe (in a lesser denial of her own) that Quinn's condition was that serious. Still, she should get the contact info of that doctor that Kurt had mentioned he was seeing. Just in case.

She was surprised when her cell phone buzzed on the end table by her head at nearly two in the morning, and she stared at it for a moment as if she didn't believe someone was calling her at such an ungodly hour, but she immediately answered when she recognized the number.

"Kurt?" she asked, her voice laced with concern for her friend. She knew he hadn't been sleeping well since the shooting. Well, none of them had, but Kurt's sleeping habits were worse off than the rest of them. "Are you all right?"

"It's not Kurt," said the gruff voice she instantly recognized as her friend's father. His tone was strained, worried. Scared. "Look, I'm sorry, Mercedes, but I didn't know who else to call—"

Mercedes sat bolt upright in bed. "What's going on? What happened?"

"Kurt's missing," Mr. Hummel rushed. "I – I dunno where he went; he left his cell phone here, but he's just… he's just _gone!_"

"Oh, my God," Mercedes breathed, turning on the light of her room and scrambling out of bed. "Did you call the police?"

"Yeah, but the goddamn precinct won't do anything unless he's been missing for more than ten hours," he spat, his voice practically shaking with fury. Or maybe that was the less-than-stable connection.

"Do you have any idea where he might be?" she cried, pulling on her sneakers and a sweatshirt, not bothering to change out of her pajamas.

Mr. Hummel sighed heavily on the other end. "No, that's why I called you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have woken you up, but I've been all over town already, and—"

"Mr. H, I'm on my way out right now to look for him," Mercedes cut him off as she tiptoed as fast as she could downstairs, staying quiet so as not to wake Quinn or her parents. "I'll call you as soon as I find him, I promise."

After hanging up, she made sure to shut the front door behind her with as little noise as possible, then climbed into her VW Bug and shifted into neutral. She coasted out of the drive (thank God they were on a slight incline) and down the street, only turning on the engine once she reached the corner.

Lima was a different town at night. A smallish Midwest cow town, it didn't have much of a nightlife, and Mercedes passed only one or two other drivers out and about. There was no one on the sidewalks or in the bicycle lanes, and the entire town was lit only by streetlamps, every house's windows dark. Even the 24-hour diners, though open, had zero to few customers. Mercedes wove a seemingly random path through the network of Lima's streets, checking every hangout spot that they had. Her list of possible locations for her missing friend was growing worryingly short, when she spotted a hunched figure trudging slowly along the sidewalk.

She slowed the car and pulled up alongside him, rolling down the window. "Puck!" she called. When he turned around, his brows snapping together in surprise, she stopped and waited for him to lean through the open window on his elbows.

"What're you doin' out so late?" he asked, blinking slowly.

Mercedes grimaced when she smelled his breath. "Ugh, are you _drunk_?"

"Maybe."

She decided not to dwell too long on Puck's mumbled words and dulled expression. "Snap out of it, Puckerman. Have you seen Kurt?"

He shook his head, looking more confused than concerned in response to her question. "Why?" he slurred. "'S he missin'?"

Mercedes clamped her lips shut and nodded solemnly.

"Oh," Puck said, his eyebrows climbing towards his hairline. "Shit."

"You're _sure_ you haven't seen him?" she pressed.

"Assolutely," he said definitively.

Mercedes sighed frustratedly; this conversation was going nowhere. She thanked Puck hastily before revving up the engine to leave.

"Wait, d'you need any help, like, lookin' for him?" he offered before the car could pull away.

"Go home, Puck," she said, driving back onto the street and leaving Puck standing dizzy and alone on the sidewalk.

Her thumbs drummed against the steering wheel as her eyes jumped back and forth between the street ahead and the surrounding suburbia, hoping that Kurt would suddenly appear. She didn't know why he'd be out this late or where he might go, but she hoped to God that he hadn't done anything rash. As she ran out of possible locations, Mercedes nervously wondered if she should be checking any of the bridges in town, or the quarries filled with deep water outside the city limits. Just in case. But no, Kurt couldn't be _that_ bad off. Not enough to do _that_. She refused to believe it.

At that moment, an idea popped into her head, and she spun the car around (there were no cops around to care that she had pulled a U-turn by driving _over_ the grass median). Before, she'd only taken the past into account, and neglected to think of the present. What Kurt was feeling _now_. She was more than aware of his overwhelming guilt for not saying anything about Parker, but it wasn't until now that she realized just how heartbroken – literally – Kurt was now that Finn was gone.

When she turned the corner, the first thing she noticed was that the lights were on in Finn's house. The only home in the entire goddamn empty cow town that was still awake. There was a park across the street from Finn's house – nothing big, just a little playground – and Mercedes let her car roll into park beside it. As the vehicle came to a stop, Mercedes could see through the big bay window of the Hudsons' kitchen, and Carole Hudson herself sat slouched at the table, staring at her hands, unmoving. Mercedes wanted to get out of the car and go join her, if for no other reason than to let Mrs. Hudson know that she was not the only one who missed him.

She sighed and pulled her gaze away from Finn's mother. When her eyes fell on the figure sitting slumped on the park bench on the far side of the playground, the air whooshed out of her lungs in a sigh of relief. She scrambled out of the car and marched across the playground, approaching Kurt with a blunt, "Just what exactly was going through your head when you decided to go MIA and scare the crap out of everybody?"

Kurt looked up slowly; he had dozed off slightly in his sitting position on the bench and had been drifting somewhere between sleep and consciousness when Mercedes' voice, harsh with worry, sliced through and tugged him back to reality. "What?" was his simple dazed response.

Mercedes huffed and rolled her eyes, dropping onto the bench beside him. "Kurt…" she said softly after a few moments of silence. "What are you doing out here?"

He shrugged, letting his gaze rest on the lit windows across the street, Mrs. Hudson's shadow pressing against the glass.

Mercedes' eyes lifted to study the face of the full moon high above them. "Kurt…what's going on?"

He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't know," he said quietly.

"I think we both know that that's not true," Mercedes replied, turning her head to watch his expression as his face fell, darkening in the moonlight.

The silence stretched over several minutes (at least, it felt like several minutes; it might have only been seconds) before Kurt spoke, his voice cracking. "One shot," he said. "Through the stomach and left kidney."

Mercedes stared at him, a look of horror flitting across her features. "What are you—?"

"That's what killed him. The shot to his head didn't do much. He died of internal bleeding, three blocks away from the hospital." Kurt's voice had faded to a whisper.

Mercedes didn't bother to find out how he'd learned that; she simply reached over and pulled him into a tight embrace, allowing him to finally succumb to the violent, wracking sobs that had been threatening to escape for the past two weeks. To her it almost felt as if Kurt was having a seizure, he was shaking so much. For all his feminine qualities, he was very filled out, and she could feel the muscles in his back tensing and un-tensing as the lungs worked beneath them, making sure that oxygen reached his brain as the hysterics took over.

"Kurt?" she ventured when she sensed that he was slowly beginning to calm down. "We should probably get you home. You're dad's real worried."

He drew a long, shuddering breath, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his pajamas. "God, I'm tired," he said to himself.

She rubbed his shoulder. "Me too, Kurt. Come on, up you get." They stood up, but Kurt was slammed with a wave of dizziness from the prolonged lack of oxygen, and he fell back onto the bench with a light thud.

"Hey."

Mercedes turned around in surprise at the third voice to see that Puck had arrived unnoticed. "You need any help?" he asked.

"I thought you went home," she said.

He shook his head, looking a little more coherent than he had during their earlier encounter (but not by much). "No, I came lookin' for him," he said, gesturing with his chin towards Kurt, who was watching the exchange with a sort of dazed perplexity at how Puck had known he was missing. "Guess you found him first."

Not waiting for Mercedes to respond, Puck briskly walked over to Kurt and helped him to his feet, looping an arm around Kurt's back to support him as he began to guide him back towards Mercedes' car. Mercedes couldn't help but note that two weeks ago, Puck would have sneered and denounced touching Kurt like that as gay, and she wasn't sure that he still wouldn't, but he was drunk, after all. She suppressed a tiny smile at Puck's uncharacteristic gesture of kindness before following him to the car.

Kurt dropped heavily into the passenger seat, already drifting off to sleep against the headrest. Puck straightened up, closing the door once Kurt's feet were inside. "Thank you," Mercedes said.

He shrugged.

"Can I give you a ride?" she offered.

"Nah, I'm right around the corner," he declined. His eyes flitted back to Kurt for a second. "Make sure he's okay," he said to Mercedes.

She nodded, giving Puck's shoulder a pat before climbing into the driver's seat. She bid him a good night, then revved the engine and pulled back onto the street. When she pulled into the Hummels' driveway, Kurt's dad was already outside, having seen her headlights from in the kitchen.

"Is he okay?" he rushed.

Mercedes nodded. "He's fine," she assured him, opening the passenger door.

Burt bent over next to his sleeping son, gently shaking him awake. "Hey," he said softly. "Hey, Kurt, wake up."

Kurt muttered something incoherent as his eyes cracked open, bleary and red. "Hi, Dad," he said.

"Hey, buddy," Burt said, brushing Kurt's hair back. "You okay?"

"Mm-hm," Kurt said sleepily, his eyes sliding shut again.

"Come on, let's get you inside." Burt pulled his son to his feet and led him inside, guiding him down to the basement and letting him fall into bed. He draped a blanket over Kurt before returning to Mercedes, who still stood in the driveway.

"He back asleep?" she asked.

"Yeah," Burt nodded. "He's pretty worn out. Guess you all are, though."

Mercedes shrugged. She glanced at the sky, which was beginning to turn a light bluish grey. "I should go," she said.

"Yeah, uh…thanks. For finding him."

"You don't need to thank me; I care about him as much as you do," she said, knowing that that was saying a _lot_.

"Still," he said. "Thank you." To Mercedes' surprise, Burt leaned forward and wrapped her in a hug. "It'll all get better eventually," he promised.

Mercedes had to work to swallow the lump in her throat as he let her go, turning to go back inside. "Bye, Mr. Hummel."

"Bye, Mercedes."

* * *

**A/N:** I am so, so sorry it took this long to update. Life got very much in the way, and I had to beat it back with Mike Chang's baseball bat. Please leave a review, if you can forgive me for this long a gap.


	18. Chapter 18

_Chapter Eighteen_

_"For each thing we do to change, we do a million to remain the same."  
_

When Mercedes finally returned home, the sun's rays were just beginning to peek over the eastern horizon, turning the sky from a washed-out bluish grey to a rosy pink. Her breath clouded when she stepped out of the car, and a thin dusting of frost coated the grass on her front lawn. She tiptoed back into the house, careful not to let the door slam. She checked the kitchen wall clock as she set about brewing coffee – at nearly six in the morning, it was too late to go to bed, even if it was a Saturday.

Coffee in hand, she headed back upstairs, stopping in the hallway when she noticed that the door to the guest room was open. She was about to lean in and see if Quinn had just happened to forget to close the door before she slept when she heard the distinct sounds of morning sickness coming from the bathroom. She set her coffee on the hallway bookshelf and knocked softly on the bathroom door.

"Quinn?" she called. "You in there?" As if it could be anyone else.

She was answered by the sound of a dry heave.

Opening the door, she found Quinn, as expected, kneeling on the floor with her head hung over the toilet bowl, one hand clutching her stomach and the other holding her hair back so it wouldn't get vomit on it. "Oh, Quinn," Mercedes sighed.

"I'm sorry," Quinn choked out, spitting the last of it into the bowl and flushing, leaning back against the wall beside the bathtub.

Mercedes filled the bathroom water glass with cold tap water and handed it to Quinn, who took it and drank gratefully. "Honey, you got nothing to be sorry about. So stop apologizing."

"No, that's not what I meant," Quinn said, realizing that Mercedes thought she was referring to the upchuck currently being flushed out of the Jones's plumbing. "I mean…"

Mercedes frowned, kneeling down beside Quinn. "What?"

Quinn's lip trembled and she wiped her eyes. Her voice was trembling. "I-I…I'm sorry that…that I put you through this…"

Mercedes laid a hand on Quinn's shoulder. "What did I tell you about feeling sorry for yourself? You haven't put me through anything, Quinn."

"God, why is this so hard?" Quinn whispered, almost to herself. Her cheeks were wet and her eyes bloodshot.

"I know it's hard," Mercedes said softly, her hand still on Quinn's shoulder. "Trust me, though, that baby is definitely gonna get her strength from you and not Puck."

Quinn laughed, fresh tears slipping out the corners of her eyes, but her heart wasn't in it. "Mercedes…I'm not talking about the baby," she said, her voice fading. She swallowed, fighting back sobs. "I…I'm talking about F-Finn and Tina."

Mercedes' eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

Quinn's chest was shuddering now, her voice stretched thin by the rock in her throat. "I am so sorry that – that I ever pretended, even for a second, that they weren't gone – I just thought I was pro-protecting myself, but I only ended up hur-hurting you, just like I hurt Finn, and Puck, and—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, shhh," Mercedes stopped her. "Calm down. Breathe. It's okay."

"No, it's not," Quinn cried.

Mercedes grabbed both of Quinn's hands in hers. "Quinn, how long ago did you stop?" she asked, conveniently omitting any use of the word _denial_.

"I'm such a coward," she sniffed, her face blotched, and suddenly Mercedes realized that Quinn was too far along in her pregnancy to be having morning sickness. The vomiting was because of everything else.

"God, Quinn," she sighed, not knowing what else to say.

"The memorial's tomorrow," Quinn said, staring at her knees.

"Yeah."

"I don't have anything black."

"We'll find you something."

"I can't believe…_any_ of this is happening…"

"Me neither," Mercedes said. "Come on." She helped Quinn to her feet, and together they walked back to the guest room.

Quinn climbed back into bed, leaning back against the headboard with no real intention of going back to sleep. Mercedes sat on the other end, by Quinn's feet. "You know, Quinn…" she started quietly. "I was talking to my parents, and, uh… well, we all think that you should stay here. I mean…for good."

Quinn shook her head. "No, I – I can't do that—"

"God dammit, when are you going to get it through your head that people _want_ to do these things for you?" Mercedes huffed. "Look, you can't do it all on your own; you know that and so does everybody. But trust me when I say that we aren't saying you should stay with us out of charity."

Quinn didn't even bother this time to wipe away the tears that were flooding down her cheeks. She smiled. "Thank you."

"You're gonna have a good life, Quinn," Mercedes assured her with a pat on the knee. "Now, I was hoping I could talk you into doing something with me for the memorial tomorrow."

Quinn wiped her nose on her sleeve. "What is it?"

"Rachel called me up yesterday and told me that I should sing something at the assembly. Apparently, Puck's doing something too. You wanna sing with me?"

For the first time in a _very_ long time, Quinn's smile was genuine.

* * *

Puck couldn't remember when he'd gotten home, but now he was laying on his bed staring at his maroon walls in misery. The memorial was tomorrow, and he still had barely processed the fact that seven people he knew, however closely or superficially, were dead. Seven faces he would no longer see in the hallways. Seven gaps in classroom seating arrangements. Seven faces eliminated from the yearbook.

Grumbling incoherently to himself, still half drunk, he spied the book of poetry that Rachel had given him as a birthday present sitting on the bedside table, and before he knew it, he was leafing through it, skimming the pages for a poem that was short enough for his drunken brain to absorb. They all seemed to be pretty long, though, so he resigned to skipping between the pages that Rachel had marked for him.

None of the poems made any sense to Puck, but they sounded like the people who wrote them had some clue of what they were talking about, and it was nice to think that somebody out there had some grasp on reality and how to deal with it. He was almost halfway through the book when he wondered why the hell he was reading poetry at all. He shrugged off the surprise and attributed the action to the fact that he was still, after all, drunk, and his judgment was clouded. He was about to close the book and toss it back onto the bedside table when the title of one of the poems Rachel _hadn't_ marked caught his eye.

_Just Another Paradigm Shift._

Curiously, Puck read through the poem once, twice, three times.

_Just a shadow. Hardly that. But audible._

_Coming out of the woods, whispering_

_Happily Ever After._

_Even in that light—_

_stars with the skeletons of animals_

_and old friends—visible_

_to the eye behind the one always_

_left open on the east side of the house,_

_downhill. Where the coffee trees_

_and hemp and the graves of old dogs lie,_

_buried themselves in leaves and left_

_to the sputtering wind of memory._

_& if that's not enough (he says_

_to himself in the voice of a black-and-white_

_actor whose name is a moth that keeps_

_avoiding the tip of his flaming tongue)_

_to bring you home, well, there_

_it is again, already exhausted_

_by your efforts to make it_

_comfortable_

_enough to stay. Impatient, already headed_

_back down into the woods, whispering_

_Once Upon A Time . . ._

Strangely enough, it made a weird sort of sense to Puck's buzzed brain. He thought it might have been all about endings and loneliness. The "skeletons of old friends" part bothered him a little, though.

Abruptly, Puck rolled his eyes at himself and slammed the book shut, letting it land with a soft _thud_ on the floor. What business had he reading poetry? Groaning in the light of the late morning that was pouring through his window, he rolled over and went to sleep.

* * *

A/N: So, yeah, short chapter. Sorry about that. I really don't like Puck's scene in this chapter, but it was necessary for the finale. Yes, I have it mostly written out already. Sadly, there's only going to be a few more chapters of this story, but I have several other ideas that I'm nursing. The delay in the posting of this chapter was in part due to a mandatory all-school camping excursion - one that not only turned me into a giant mosquito bite, but also got me stalked by a ludicrously tame wild turkey named Darlene. Heh, that was interesting.

So, couple things before I sign off:

A) The number of reviews has been going down recently, even though the reader traffic has remained pretty much the same. So please please _please_ review - I have to feed my muse or else she/he/it will starve and I'll never get this thing done.

B) In a short break from the misery of this story, I posted two new Glee fics, called _Shame On You_ and _Classic_. Also a oneshot for _The Secret of Roan Inish_, for anybody who's seen that movie. Gotta love the Irish. Please check them out, read, review, favorite and all that.

And C) For those of you out there who are, like me, Glee-characters-in-tragic-situation junkies, I want your opinion on something: How would you feel about me posting a crossover between Glee and _The Road_ by Cormac McCarthy? I've already gotten the first chapter written (and typed! huzzah!), but I'm unsure about posting it, since McCarthy doesn't really lend itself to fanfiction, let alone crossovers. I'd also be happy to send you a preview of it if you ask :) Anywho, let me know what you think via review, PM, email, or Owl Post.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Just thought I'd make up for the last chapter being so short by posting two in quick succession.

* * *

_Chapter Nineteen_

_"A belief is a question we have to put aside so we can get on with what we believe we have to do."  
_

"You ready, sweetie?"

Santana turned around, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. She'd been casting a last look at her hospital ward when Maarit walked in. Not that Santana would miss this place, but…leaving the hospital made it feel like everything that had happened over the last two weeks, the shock, the emotional rollercoaster and the worry and all the guilt…was real.

Maarit still stood in the doorway, expectant.

"Yeah," Santana said, turning around on her crutches. She had a smaller cast now, but it was still bulky enough to be more than an annoyance, and not nearly small enough for her baggy sweatpants to hide. "Yeah, let's go."

Maarit laid a hand across Santana's back as they left the ward together, heading for the elevators. Santana limped along in silence while Maarit made some light joke about not missing the hospital food.

"What will you do now?" Maarit asked.

"What do you mean?"

The nurse pressed the elevator call button. "Well, you're going home now. Getting your feet under you and starting anew. All that jazz."

"Tell me something," Santana said, narrowing her eyes at Maarit. "Is being so optimistic a choice you made, or is it just engrained into your DNA?"

Maarit laughed, shrugging. "I honestly have no clue. But the question was legitimate. Got an answer?"

Santana sighed, staring at the elevator doors and willing them to open. "I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Well, nobody does," Maarit said.

"Then why'd you ask?"

"To see if you were going to delude yourself into thinking that you _did_ know. Because then we'd have to have another talk," she replied frankly.

Santana rolled her eyes. The elevator doors opened.

"Your mom and sister are waiting for you in the lobby," Maarit told her as she stepped inside.

"You're not coming?" Santana asked when the nurse didn't follow.

Maarit shook her head. "No, I got a patient down the hall in _serious_ need of some morphine," she said. She paused, and a motherly smile graced her features. "If you ever need to talk, Santana… you know where to find me. I have a feeling, though, that you'll be just fine. Maybe not today, or tomorrow…but you will be."

Santana swallowed the growing lump in her throat, saying nothing and looking at Maarit's tennis shoes.

"Goodbye, Santana."

Her eyes raised just in time to see Maarit disappear as the elevator doors closed.

* * *

Once Santana was gone, Maarit sighed and headed back down the hall, entering room 239, where Artie Abrams lay in bed, staring silently at the ceiling like he had been nearly every time she'd seen him. He wasn't refusing to eat or bathe or sleep, and those were all good signs, but he was completely vacant, and Maarit hated seeing it. It was almost like he'd switched to autopilot. Santana had been singing with joy compared to him.

"Hey, kiddo," she greeted him as she approached the side of the bed. He blinked, his eyes meeting hers for a brief moment before returning to the ceiling. "Can you sit up for a second so I can check how your nose is doing?" Maarit requested once she'd changed his banana bag.

Wordlessly, he raised the bed so he was sitting upright, letting her inspect his broken nose and change the tape across it. "Your bruises are getting better," she told him. The blue and purple had mostly faded from wherever he'd gotten kicked or hit or stomped on, and had instead turned the majority of his visible skin a sickly yellow color. "They still hurt?" she asked, though she didn't expect an answer.

He didn't acknowledge the question, simply waited for her to finish before lying back.

The ward door slid open, and Mrs. Abrams walked in, stopping when she saw Maarit. "Oh, hi," she said. There were shadows under her eyes that had only grown darker over the past two weeks.

"I was just checking up on his condition," Maarit said, shifting Artie's legs so the skin beneath could breathe, a quick act of bedsore prevention.

"Could I talk to you for a second? In private?" Mrs. Abrams asked abruptly.

Maarit looked up, thrown a little off guard. "Uh, yeah. Of course."

The two women went out into the hallway, Maarit closing the door behind them. Mrs. Abrams had her arms crossed over her chest, was chewing on her lip. Her eyes were watery, nervous.

"What's going on?" Maarit prompted.

"I have to ask," she said quietly. "Do you think Artie is going to come out of this?"

"You're asking me as a professional?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's not really my place to…"

"I don't care."

"Don't you think this question is better suited to Dr. Greene? I'm just a nurse—"

"I don't care," Mrs. Abrams repeated, her voice shaking. "If I wait for Dr. Greene to show up, then I'll never get up the courage to ask. So tell me: do you think Artie will come out of this on his own?"

Maarit sighed. "Speaking as a professional, I think it looks like Artie's going to stay like this for a while. Whether or not he actually will is entirely up to him; this isn't a neurological condition, and it doesn't even seem extreme enough to be a psychological one. I think it's a choice he's made, to give himself time and space so he can work through his grief," Maarit explained. Mrs. Abrams nodded tearfully, chewing on her lip. "Listen. Take him to the memorial tomorrow. I can pull some strings, get him a day's release. It might get him to start talking again, once he really sees he's not the only one who's missing her. And if not…well, maybe you might want to look into getting some help for him after he's discharged."

"Help? What kind of help?"

Maarit pulled a pen and pocket notebook out of her breast pocket, scribbling onto a blank page. "This is the contact information for my husband," she said. "He's a therapist, and he's very good. He knows his stuff. His name is Reid Kendrick; he's already helping another couple of kids who were in the shooting." Maarit tore out the page and handed it to Mrs. Abrams. "If you ever think that Artie needs some moral support from someone outside the family, give him a call."

Mrs. Abrams wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "Thanks."

Maarit grasped Mrs. Abrams's hand and gave it a comforting squeeze before letting it go. "Your son is extremely tough and extremely brave. He won't come out of this unscathed, but he'll come out of it. He'll be okay."

* * *

A/N: So, still not getting many reviews. Please leave a comment, however quick. I like to know that there are still people who are paying attention to this. Special thanks to those who _did_ review :) Wow, I'm kinda turning into a review whore. Oh well.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Wow, twenty chapters! This is officially my longest story.

* * *

_Chapter Twenty_

_"Once it's gone, how easy it is to say it was mine."  
_

Rachel couldn't sleep. She lay in bed, wide awake, staring at her blank ceiling with blank eyes, thinking about nothing. It was unusually chilly in her room, and she was huddled beneath three quilts and in her warmest pajamas. The heat in their house wouldn't be turned on until Thursday.

She blinked, shaken out of her trance as the phone rang on her bedside table. Hastily she answered before it could go to a second ring.

"_Berry?_"

"Oh…hi, Noah," she said. "What's going on?"

"_Nothing, I just…thought I'd call…_" he said slowly. "_See how you were doin'._"

"Really." It wasn't a question. He sounded hung over, so she wouldn't be surprised if he was slightly inebriated.

"_Yes, really,_" he countered, his tone a little offended.

"I'm doing okay, I think," she said, losing the suspicion in her voice. "Are you?"

"_The memorial's tomorrow,_" he stated, deadpan.

She glanced at the clock. "Actually, it's today."

"_Oh. Right._"

"Are you okay, Noah?"

"_Yeah._"

An extended pause. "You don't sound okay."

"_How come you're not singin' somethin', Berry?_" he asked abruptly.

"What?"

"_You take every chance you get to sing – why not this one?_"

Rachel sighed. Puck had a point, and frankly, she'd been surprised when Mercedes didn't ask her the same thing when she'd called to suggest a performance to her fellow diva. "It would be wrong for me – or anyone, for that matter – to take advantage of a memorial and use it for publicity. After all, I didn't really know either of them."

"_Wait, what d'you mean you didn't know 'em? They were your friends, too, weren't they?_"

"I suppose I could call them that, yes, but I feel like the term would have to be stretched slightly to apply to the truth. I really didn't know them."

"_But…you dated Finn._"

"I dated you, too."

"_And you know me._"

"No, Noah, I don't," she said softly. "Aside from drinking and throwing Kurt in dumpsters, I really have no idea what you do in your spare time, what you like, what your interests are. When we were dating, I was just rattling on about myself all the time, I never included you in the conversation. I never asked you anything about yourself; I never bothered."

Puck was a little taken aback by how casually she'd admitted that last bit, but it was entirely true. "_And…you did the same thing when you were datin' Finn?_" he guessed.

She sighed again. "Yes," she answered simply, guiltily.

"_Well, what about Tina?_"

"Outside of Glee, I never saw her."

"_Huh._"

Rachel twisted a lock of hair around her finger. "Noah, why are you asking me this?"

"_I dunno. Just seemed weird that you weren't, y'know…performing._"

"Are you scared?"

"_What? No. Wait, about what?_"

"About singing."

"_Oh. I dunno, maybe I'm a little nervous,_" he admitted cautiously before hastily adding, "_I mean, this is way different than any Glee gig._"

"I understand, Noah," Rachel stopped him. "Really, I do. And…thank you."

"_Huh?_"

"Thank you," she repeated. "For doing this. I know that if Finn were here, he would appreciate it."

"_Well, you were right, he'd do the same for me,_" Puck dismissed. She could hear the discomfort in his voice. Rachel didn't know much about Noah Puckerman's personal life, but one thing she _did_ know was that he did not know how to react to a compliment. "_Listen, Berry…I'll see you tomorrow._"

"Good night, Noah."

* * *

Emma stared at herself in the mirror on Sunday morning. Her hair was meticulously combed, as always, her makeup carefully applied. From her ears hung two tiny pearl drops, the only pieces of light color she wore today. From the neck down, she was garbed in a plain black sleeveless dress, the only black garment she owned. She sighed, suddenly thinking that the creases around her eyes and mouth had grown much deeper over the past couple of weeks. Her posture had changed, too. Before, she would sit with a rigid back, her hands held up away from any surface that might be covered in germs. She still sat perfectly straight, but her shoulders slumped a little, and her hands were quietly laced in her lap instead.

She checked the time on the little bureau clock. "Will?" she called. "Are you ready yet? We've only got a few minutes."

Will appeared in the doorway. Black suit, white shirt, black tie. He smoothed his jacket.

Emma sighed again, standing up and going over to him. "Let me fix that for you," she said softly, reaching for his necktie and straightening it. Once it was in place, she placed one hand on Will's shoulder, the other on his neck, her eyes meeting his. "Are you doing all right?" she asked.

He exhaled slowly. His expression was worn – it hadn't been anything but since the shooting – and his eyes tired. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "It'll be okay, Will."

He nodded, unsure. "Yeah," he said again. "We just have to get through today, and then… we can move on from there."

Emma smiled sadly, withdrawing her hands from his shoulders and sitting on the bed to put on her shoes as Will buttoned his cuffs.

"Emma, do you…" he started. "Do you think I haven't been there? For the kids, I mean."

"Will, you can't beat yourself up about this," Emma replied, shaking her head. "These things just happen, you know, there's no explaining it or preventing it or even understanding it. They just happen."

He leaned against the doorframe. "I don't know, I just feel like maybe I should have seen something, some warning sign. Anything."

"Wayne wasn't even in any of your classes, Will," Emma said.

"No, I'm not really talking about Wayne. Not just Wayne, anyways."

Emma's thin brows drew together in a frown as she waited for him to continue.

"I mean, the more I think about it, the more I remember these things that… that I should have realized meant something much worse than I thought," he said, almost to himself, like a thought process said out loud. "Tensions between the kids, fights that the teachers aren't supposed to hear about… that kind of thing."

Emma stood up again. "Will, you are a great teacher. There is nothing you could have noticed that would have made a difference. We just have to accept what's happened and not dwell on it too much; we have to move on."

He sighed heavily, a shuddering breath that told her he was on the verge of tears. He swallowed them and nodded, his fingers curling and uncurling at his sides. "You're right. Okay. We can do this. Come on."

Emma rubbed his shoulder as they headed downstairs to her car (she refused to ride in his, since he only cleaned the inside four times a year). The ride to school was entirely silent as Will drove and she leaned back against the headrest and watched the town pass by. It truly was incredible how _normal_ everything looked. The weather was clear and sunny, and people were going about their daily business as Will and Emma were going to a memorial for seven murdered children.

And even after all that, it didn't really hit home until they pulled into the school parking lot, and she took in the heaps of flowers, the burning candles, the _IN MEMORIAM _banner, the slow crowd of people all dressed in black gradually moving from their cars to the building. Gathering to say goodbye.

* * *

A/N: The number of reviews has risen significantly! Thank you all so much, you're wonderful. As for the sudden rapid updates, I'm pretty sure my muse snuck into my coffee stash, and now she/he/it won't shut up. It's now 3AM on a school night, and I'm going to sleep. Please leave a review :)


	21. Chapter 21

_Chapter Twenty-One_

_"As much innocence is found as lost."  
_

As the scattered crowd of people slowly arriving at McKinley began to trickle from the parking lot into the school, Santana's older sister helped her clamber out of the passenger seat of their car. Setting her good leg on the ground, Santana wobbled slightly as she gained her balance on her crutches, looking around the busy parking lot nervously. She was not used to injury; that was Brittany's department. She'd been fine in the hospital, where the bulky cast didn't look out of place and nobody cast her a second glance, and she'd been fine at home, where her mother and sister were the only ones to see her. But here? Where she had established herself as fierce and unbreakable years ago? She was not used to weakness.

Glancing at her reflection on the car window, she fiddled anxiously with her dress and hair, realizing just how difficult the simple task became when standing on only one leg. "You okay?" her sister asked, a hand on her shoulder.

Santana drew a long breath, looking towards the school. "Yeah," she said. "Let's go." The two of them began to slowly make their way over to the handicap ramp (Santana had a lot of trouble with stairs). "Thanks, Mariana," she said as they walked.

"For what?" her sister asked.

"For coming with me."

Mariana smiled, draping an arm over her little sister's shoulders. "You needed someone to drive you anyway."

Santana almost smiled back, but she caught sight of another person heading for the handicap ramp. "Uh, Mariana?" she said. "Can you give me a sec?"

Mariana's gaze flickered over to where Artie's dad was wheeling him over the pavement. "Sure. I'll meet you inside, okay?"

"Yeah."

Mariana left, leaving Santana to limp over to Artie by herself. "Artie," she said, wobbling a little as she stood in front of him. "Can we talk?"

Mr. Abrams put on the wheelchair brakes and clapped a hand down on Artie's shoulder. "You okay with this, bud?"

Artie didn't respond, simply watched Santana, unblinking, as if he were trying to figure out what her angle was.

"I'm, uh…gonna let you two talk for a minute," Mr. Abrams finally said when he got no answer from his son. He gave Artie's shoulder a squeeze before walking inside.

So there they were. A paralyzed boy and a wounded cheerleader, neither of them able to speak. There was so much Santana wanted to say, so much she wanted to make up for. But Artie was watching her, completely silent, no trace of anger anywhere in his expression, and it shocked her into her own silence.

A sparrow chirped from up on the school roof, and a mourning dove moaned somewhere off in the trees lining the parking lot. A light breeze sighed through the branches, and dead leaves eddied around their feet. Artie waited, unmoving.

"I'm so sorry, Artie," she said at long last, so quiet that she wasn't sure Artie had heard her, and before she knew it, the words were pouring out of her, water through a broken dam. "I know…I know you're mad at me, and you hate me right now, and I don't blame you. I hate myself for what I did to you." Her voice wavered, her breath hitching in her throat. "I hate that I lied about Tina. I hate that I was protecting myself when you deserved to know the truth. I hate that you stopped talking—" Her words were choked off by a sudden sob as brand new tears left tracks down her cheeks. She covered her face with one hand and clenched her teeth until she could continue. "I hate that you stopped talking, and I hate that I made you. Artie, there's never been anything I've done that I wish I could take back more. And I'm so, so sorry that she's gone."

Santana stopped short when she saw that Artie was crying, too.

"I'm not mad at you," he said, almost inaudible. His voice, rough and gravelly from not being used, cracked.

"Why not?" Santana asked. She almost wanted him to be angry at her, to hate her.

"I was," he replied softly, sniffing. "I really was, but I – I didn't leave because I was angry. I wanted to yell at you and find out why you lied. But I left, 'cause—" He stopped and swallowed. "I left because I couldn't look at you without thinking of her, and I just…I just didn't want to think. About her, about any of it." His voice was growing tight, his sentences broken up by sobs. He gritted his teeth, closing his eyes for several moments as he tried to calm his breathing. "I just wanted… God, I don't know what I wanted."

"I'm so sorry, Artie," Santana said again.

"I know."

Santana sniffed, brushing the back of her hand against her nose and casting a glance at the school entrance. "We should go in," she said.

Artie nodded wordlessly, wiping off his reddened face before lifting the brake on his chair and pushing himself up the ramp. Santana followed, much more slowly, and found that he was waiting for her at the top.

* * *

"Thank you all for coming," Figgins's voice broke through the quiet murmurs of the people packed into the gymnasium. It had been decided that the gym hosted a larger number of people, and so the memorial had been set up there. Rachel sat with her dads off to the left of the makeshift stage, really just a risen platform on the floor in the center of the room with large framed photographs of the seven victims on stands at the stage edge. She wasn't really listening to Figgins's opening speech – he was never an eloquent speaker, anyway, and she doubted he could do justice to any of the deceased – and instead she was searching the sea of faces for her friends. She saw Puck sitting almost opposite her on the other side of the stage, next to his mother, his guitar case leaning against his legs. He didn't see her, as he was staring off into space, his eyes deadpanned and unfocused. She sighed and looked for the rest of the people she knew.

Finally, she spied Santana sitting on the bottom level of the risers, Artie sitting next to her in his chair. Quinn and Mercedes sat a little ways up, and Matt and Mike on the far side. Kurt sat alone. Rachel didn't find anyone else, but she knew they were there.

The memorial was a slow-moving affair. The people who stood up to speak were mostly faculty members, and they spoke for the most part about the other kids who died besides Finn and Tina. Rachel realized that Finn and Tina had never been memorable students; Finn's grades were unremarkable and Tina never spoke during classes. She wondered angrily if the teachers who were speaking even remembered that they had died.

At least an hour passed before Rachel saw Puck stand up and mount the stage as the speaker before him returned to their seat. She held her breath as Puck set his guitar on the ground by his feet and gripping the microphone in one hand. He seemed nervous, his eyes flicking from audience member to audience member, and she wondered what he was about to do. After a moment of hesitation, he spoke, his voice ringing clear throughout the auditorium.

"I learned a new phrase yesterday," he said. "Paradigm shift. It's when somethin' happens and it makes you rethink the way you look at the world. Like maybe the world wasn't what you thought it was. And I guess…what happened two weeks ago was a paradigm shift for everybody.

"It's no secret that I'm not the nicest person by any standards. Two months ago, I tried to give Finn Hudson the opportunity to play a sick joke on one of the guys who I'm now proud to call a friend. But Finn said he wouldn't, and he saved the guy from what I woulda done without even thinkin' if the roles had been switched. He told me…he told me that he didn't want to be nothin'," Puck took a breath to steady his voice, which had grown a little shaky, before speaking again with more confidence. "Finn had his low points, but so does everyone. And I am always gonna remember him like he was last September, when he was the first one to take a stand. He was a good guy. And now, he might be gone, but… I know that I'm a better person for it, at least. I guess that's my paradigm shift.

"As much as the deaths of our friends may keep us up at night, jumpin' at every noise and hopin' that we're gonna wake up tomorrow and everything'll be back to the way it was, I think we all need to take away somethin' good from this. Because we're the lucky ones. We got a second chance."

Rachel had watched the entire speech with a growing respect for him. Over the years in high school with him, she'd felt anger, hatred, frustration, indifference, confusion, pity, and even some semblance of love for Puck, but never respect. Maybe that was _her_ paradigm shift. She swallowed the rock in her throat.

While a strange and almost eerie hush settled over the gym, Puck lifted his guitar from where it sat and hung it by the strap around his torso. He took a breath, calming his nerves, and began a slow, sad note sequence. Rachel frowned in confusion – it wasn't the song he'd practiced at the park. He opened his mouth and began to sing, the words falling as slowly and sadly as the melody behind them.

"_Yesterday, I died; tomorrow's bleeding._

_Fall into your sunlight._

_The future's opened wide, beyond believing_

_To know why hope dies_

_Losing what was found in a world so hollow,_

_Suspended in a compromise._

_And the silence of the sound soon to follow,_

_Somehow, sundown._

Quinn's eyes were threatening to spill over. Mercedes reached over and lightly squeezed her hand.

_And finding answers_

_Is forgetting all of the questions we called home,_

_Passing the graves of the unknown._

_As reason clouds my eyes, with splendor fading,_

_Illusions of the sunlight_

_And a reflection of a lie will keep me waiting_

_With love gone for so long._

_And this day's ending_

_Is the proof of time killing all the faith I know,_

_Knowing that faith is all I hold._

Rachel felt a drop land on her hand and realized she was crying, but she didn't take her eyes off Puck or reach up to brush the tears away. Puck began to strum a more complicated sequence of chords now, singing with more force. Almost as if he were about to cry himself.

_And I've lost who I am, and I can't understand_

_Why my heart is so broken and rejecting your love_

_Without love gone wrong, lifeless words carry on_

_But I know, all I know, is that the end's beginning_

_Who I am from the start, take me home to my heart_

_Let me go, and I will run; I will not be silent_

_All this time spent in vain, wasted years, wasted gain_

_All is lost, hope remains, and this war's not over_

_There's a light, there's a sun, taking all the shattered ones_

_To the place we belong, and his love will conquer_

_And I've lost who I am and I can't understand_

Rachel was drawn into an embrace from her father as she cried and the song began to repeat itself.

Emma leaned onto Will's shoulder.

Quinn tightly held Mercedes' hand, her other arm wrapped around her stomach as if she were trying to protect her baby from all the sadness.

_Yesterday, I died, tomorrow's bleeding._

_Fall into your sunlight._

* * *

A/N: The song that Puck sings is the song the story is named after - _Shattered_ by Trading Yesterday. Please leave a review.


	22. Chapter 22

_Chapter Twenty-Two_

_"Wind cannot blow away the wind, nor water wash away the water."  
_

Mercedes stood onstage, gripping the microphone in her hand and facing an ocean of mourners before her. Her palms were sweating slightly. Quinn stood beside her, also clutching a mike. They were both wearing their dresses from Sectionals after having removed the red sashes the day before. Quinn's dress had _almost_ not fit (her stomach had grown significantly larger since Sectionals), but Mercedes's mother had made a few adjustments with her sewing machine.

All eyes were on them. Quinn drew a long breath, raised the mike, and began.

"_Oh, a man is placed upon the steps, and a baby cries… High above, you can hear the church bells start to ring._" Her gaze fell on Puck; he gave her a small, encouraging nod. She closed her eyes, feeling her blood pulse in her head and the second heartbeat in her abdomen. "_And as the heaviness, oh, the heaviness, the body settles in. Somewhere you can hear a mother sing._"

She opened her eyes again, making sure that Mercedes was still there.

"_Then it's one foot, then the other as you step out on the road. Step out on the road; how much weight? How much?_" She had to swallow as rising lump before she could go on. "_Then it's how long and how far and how many times, oh, before it's too late?_"

Mercedes stepped forward, laying a hand on Quinn's shoulder and letting her voice mingle softly with Quinn's. "_Calling all angels…calling all angels… Walk me through this one, don't leave me alone. Calling all angels…calling all angels…_"

"_We're trying, we're hoping,_" Quinn sang alone.

"_But we're not sure how_," Mercedes finished the chorus. In the brief gap between chorus and verse, her eyes searched the crowd of mourners until she found Kurt, sitting alone on the top of the risers, tears flowing freely down his face. He sent her a tiny smile, as if to say _Don't worry about me_, while she began the second verse on her own.

"_Oh, and every day you gaze upon the sunset with such love and intensity. Why, it's…it's almost as if you could only crack the code, and then you'd finally understand what this all means._" She felt Quinn's hand lightly grip hers, silently saying _Go on._

"_Ah, but if you could, do you think you would trade in all the pain and suffering?_" Mercedes could see the answer written across Mr. Schuester's face from where he sat in the front row – _Yes. Dear God, yes._

"_Ah, but then you'd miss the beauty of the light upon this earth and, and the sweetness of the leaving. Calling all angels,_" she sang as Quinn joined her again, her light voice overlapping with Mercedes's honeyed one. "_Calling all angels… Walk me through this one, don't leave me alone. Calling all angels, calling all angels…_"

"_We're trying, we're hoping_," Quinn's voice rang clear while Mercedes hummed in the background. "_But we're not sure why…_"

"_Calling all angels,_" Mercedes wove in, and the two girls began to echo off of each other.

"…_calling all angels…_"

"_Walk me through this one…_"

"…_walk me through this one…_"

"_Don't leave me alone…_"

"_Calling all angels_," they sang, back in unison momentarily before alternating lines. "_Calling all angels…_"

"_We're trying, we're hoping…_"

"_We're hurting, we're loving…_"

"_We're crying, we're calling…_"

Mercedes felt a solitary teardrop wind its way down to her chin as she intoned the final lyric.

"'_Cause we're not sure how this goes._"

* * *

A week later, school resumed, but there was a hushed quality to the atmosphere, affecting the conversations between students and faculty alike. If someone dropped a book or slammed their locker in the hallways, the people within earshot would all flinch. Miss Pillsbury's office was much busier than usual with the close friends of the recently deceased, including the members of the Glee club, who had all been required to meet with her by request of Mr. Schuester. Sue Syvester had stopped Mr. Schue in the hallway on the second day, her arm still in its sling as her shoulder healed, and muttered a hasty "Sorry you lost two of your crew, Schuester." He'd simply nodded and said, "You too, Sue." She'd then walked off down the hall and never mentioned it again.

Glee club was once again holding rehearsals, but everyone was distracted, including Mr. Schue and especially Rachel. She faltered when singing, her mind elsewhere, was hesitant to stand and accept solos, and spent most of their meetings sitting silently, twisting her hair around her fingers and staring at the place on the choir room floor where it had been scrubbed clean of Finn's blood. Puck had stepped up and taken most of the male leads in Finn's place, with Matt and Mike earning a few solos here and there, but their performances were always halfhearted and tired. Artie no longer tried to follow along with the exhausted choreography with his own improvised wheelchair version, and instead sang weakly from where he would sit with Santana, no longer clad in her Cheerio uniform. Brittany was distracted, too, wondering why Santana had quit the Cheerios and was suddenly spending time with Artie. Mercedes took many of the female solos when Rachel didn't want them, sometimes doubling up with Kurt and sometimes with Brittany.

Nine days after the memorial, the second Tuesday after school was back in session, Mr. Schuester gathered the Glee members in the choir room and made an announcement.

"I've decided to hold another round of auditions for new members," he said, and was interrupted immediately by an angry Puck.

"Don't you think that's a little soon, Mr. Schue?" he demanded. There was a loud clamor of agreements from the other members.

"Look, guys, I need to know if you all want to go on and compete at Regionals," he said. "Despite everything that's happened over the past month, Figgins still stands by what he said at the beginning of the year – we need to place at Regionals or Glee club is over, and to place at Regionals we need twelve members. If you don't want to compete, though, I'll understand. It's okay. But it's up to you guys now."

Silence settled over the group, each of them deep in their own thoughts.

Santana was the first to speak. "I say we do it."

There was no response for a few moments, until Artie swallowed and said, "Me too."

"This club is all I have left," said Quinn softly.

"I'm on board," Matt chimed in.

Puck nodded, almost to himself. "Yeah. If we don't go to Regionals, it means we lost. We put in way too much work to just give up."

"Puck's right," Kurt said from the back. "I vote yes."

Mr. Schuester's gaze flickered to Rachel reflexively, waiting for her to decide. She was still the captain, after all.

She took a deep breath. "Finn and Tina are gone. They wouldn't have wanted us to let the club die with them. We have to do it for them, too."

With the blessings of all remaining ten members, Mr. Schuester posted the sign-up sheet for Glee tryouts, and in the end they'd gotten three new singers – Lilah Hamilton, a girl who divided her time between the volleyball team and the easels in the art room; Tommy DeLancy, the captain of the debate team who could sing alto if he really stretched his vocal chords; and David Castalis, the only guy in school who could break dance better than any other WMHS student, who was Greek Orthodox and would often swear in Greek so the faculty wouldn't catch him cussing.

And so slowly, Glee was getting itself back on its feet.

* * *

A month before Regionals began, the six girls and seven boys in Glee club stood in a line on the auditorium stage, Noah Puckerman front and center.

"_Take this sinking boat, and point it home, we've still got time_," he sang, twirling Brittany under his arm. "_Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice – you'll make it now._"

Mr. Schue smiled sadly as he watched the performance. The new kids were good at the choreography, but their voices weren't quite ready for solos yet, so for now, they sang backup with the rest of them.

Puck's voice echoed in the corners of the auditorium. "_Falling slowly, eyes that know me, and I can't go back. Moods that chase me and erase me, and I'm painted black._"

Artie wheeled forward then, taking Santana's hand. "_Well, you have suffered enough, and warred with yourself – it's time that you won_."

The entire club then took up the chorus, their joined voices sweeping over the empty seats and bringing tears to Mr. Schuester's eyes. "_Take this sinking boat, and point it home – we've still got time… Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice, you've made it now. Falling slowly, sing your melody, and we'll sing along… Take this sinking boat, and point it home, we've still got time…_"

"_Raise your hopeful voice…_" Kurt finished.

* * *

A/N: It's not quite over yet - still an epilogue to go. I'm also thinking of doing a sequel, so let me know what you think of that via review or PM.

On a separate note, I've just posted a brand-new Glee story entitled _Grasping For Ashes_, that's just as tragic, if not more than, _Shattered_. Entirely different premise, though, and with lots more action. So if you, like me, are a junkie for stories that have the Glee kids in horrifying situations, go check it out.

Please leave a review.


	23. Epilogue

A/N: I realized at the gentle reminding of one reviewer that in my haste to post the previous chapter, I completely forgot to acknowledge which songs I used. So, here they are: Quinn and Mercedes sung _Calling All Angels _by Jane Siberry, a song most well-known as the ending song to the movie **Pay It Forward** (awesome movie, if you haven't seen it. Go rent it. Now.) At the very end, their ensemble song was _Falling Slowly_ from the music film called **Once** (another awesome movie that you must see). Now that that's taken care of, here's the epilogue:

* * *

_Epilogue_

_"I say nothing works any more, but I get up and it's tomorrow."  
_

"See ya next Monday, Coach! Last week of the season!"

Noah Puckerman nodded a goodbye to his left tackle as the kid exited the locker room. Adjusting his baseball cap on his head, Noah erased all the strategy plans from the white board and checked his watch. He sighed, casting one last look around before leaving himself, locking up the door behind him. Friday was finally over, but he wasn't sure if he was looking forward to this weekend or not. Not much had changed around the school in the last fifteen years – sure, the faculty came and went, the styles evolved, the coffee in the staff lounge got weaker, and Miss Pillsbury was promoted to principal once Figgins retired. Noah himself had left and done two tours in Iraq before returning permanently. But the buildings all looked the same, save for a little wear here and there. Noah switched his clipboard to his other hand as he walked back to the main building where his office – formerly belonging to Coach Tanaka – was located, his mind elsewhere.

He didn't have Summer over from her mother's this weekend, so there was nothing to distract him for the next day and a half from the approaching event on Sunday – the Fifteen-Year Anniversary Memorial Service for the Victims and Survivors of the McKinley High Shooting. He hated the name; it sounded like a fricking fundraiser, but it was on the banner that hung over the school's Main Entrance, and it had glared him in the eye every morning for the past week, and so was branded into the front of his brain and was all he'd thought about since the banner had been put up. Then again, the memorial meant that his old friends, the ones he hadn't seen since graduation aside from the few who had stayed in Lima, would be back. The saddest of reunions.

Passing the choir room, he stopped and backtracked until he was standing in the doorway. A young-ish woman, wearing a professional-looking outfit, stood in the center of the room, her back to him.

"…Berry?"

She turned around, her face breaking into a smile. "Noah! How are you?"

They hugged, and Rachel straightened her jacket. "I'm doin' good, you? What are you doing here? The memorial's not til Sunday."

"Oh, I came up early to make some rounds, see some old familiar faces and spend time with my dads. I'm doing well, actually," she said. "I actually recently got promoted to junior partner at my firm."

"Wait, you're a lawyer?" he asked, his brows shooting up.

She nodded, her ponytail bouncing.

"I thought you were… you know, going to Broadway or something."

Her smile faded somewhat, and she fiddled with the wedding band on her finger. "Well, I got a small part in a show for a while, but… I don't know, it just sort of lost its charm," she said. "Besides, the courtroom requires a good amount of acting as well as wit."

Noah nodded, understanding. After the shooting, Rachel had never quite regained the same attitude towards the performing arts that she'd had before. She'd quit the ballet club, her dance classes, sticking only to Glee. She stepped down and sang backup more often than lead, and, while she seemed to enjoy it, the pushiness that she'd always maintained when it came to her talent was gone, and the Gleeks had never seen it again. "So you're married?" he switched topics, eyeing the ring she was toying with. "Anyone I know?"

She brightened again. "Yes, actually," she said with a laugh. "Mike and I ran into each other in New York about a year after graduation, and we just sort of hit it off."

"Wow, you and Chang? Congrats."

She grinned. "I kept my last name, though. Rachel Chang just had a weird ring to it. Mike is a professional choreographer, you know. He's working on the revival of _Hairspray_ right now," she told Noah. "It's funny…he made it to Broadway, but I didn't."

"I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "Really, it's okay. It was just a dream, I wasn't really that good."

"Yes, you were."

She looked down. "Thank you, Noah," she said softly. Then, she forced herself to straighten up again, turning the topic of the conversation around. "What about you? Are you married?"

"Nah," he replied with a shrug. "Couple girlfriends, but nothin' special."

"How's Quinn?"

"Oh, she's great. You know she runs the Glee club now?"

"Really? That's amazing! She works for the school?"

"Yeah, biology teacher. She's real good, too, all the kids like her."

"That's incredible!" Rachel exclaimed. "And Summer? How is she?"

A healthy glow crept into Noah's eyes, the same glow that Rachel always saw in her dads' faces whenever they spoke to their friends about her; a fatherly pride. "She's beautiful, Rach, really. Straight-A student, too, and she can sing like you wouldn't believe. I get her most weekends, but she lives with her mom."

"I'm happy for you, Noah." There was a long pause, a silence that almost-but-didn't-quite reach the comfortable.

Finally, Noah spoke up. "Wanna grab a cup of coffee?"

Rachel smiled. "Thanks, but Mike is picking me up in a couple of minutes. I just wanted to look around the school while he ran a few errands. So…we'll see you on Sunday?"

"Oh. Yeah, okay. See you then."

* * *

Sunday dawned drizzly and grey, but cleared up as Quinn climbed into the driver's seat of her old Subaru and headed to the school. Summer sat in the passenger seat, her feet up on the dashboard, twisting a lock of blonde hair around her finger.

"Thank you for coming with me," Quinn finally said, keeping her eyes on the road.

"Really, Mom, it's not a problem," Summer said, not looking away from the buildings passing by the window. "You don't have to keep thanking me."

Quinn smiled, like she did every time Summer said anything that remotely sounded like her or Noah. She wasn't even fifteen years old, and she was so obviously a blend of the two formerly foolhardy teens that sometimes she made Quinn laugh out loud at seemingly nothing, not realizing she'd looked exactly like her mother during the high school years when she'd successfully accomplished a dance move or exactly like her father when he was planning some evil little plot to launch against an unwary underclassman. Quinn loved Summer, more than could ever be put into words, but sometimes she was a little unnerved by how much she looked like Noah sometimes, and then she'd wonder how she could have ever thought she'd be able to pass the girl off as Finn's offspring, and after that she'd be slammed with a ridiculously strong wave of guilt. It was enough to drive her crazy.

When she pulled into the WMHS parking lot, people were already beginning to gravitate towards the school. The banner above the door fluttered silently in the breeze, the names of the victims written along the bottom, bouquets of flowers piled along each side of the stairs leading up to the school. Summer by her side, Quinn ascended the stairs and the two of them headed for the gymnasium.

An unsettlingly cheerful woman sitting behind a table greeted them in the hallway outside the gym. "Are you one of the survivors?" she asked bluntly.

Quinn was a little offset by the sudden question. "Uh, yeah," she said.

"All right, here's the program—"

As the woman shoved a small stack of brochures and contact information for various fundraising programs into her hands, Quinn tuned out what the woman was saying, moving on as soon as she stopped talking. Inside the gym, she scanned the crowds for her old friends.

"Quinn! Over here!"

She turned, Summer on her heels, to see Santana standing with a group of people – one of the many milling about as they waited for the service to start. Santana, having never left Lima, now worked at a jazz club as a singer. It was good that she'd found a job that didn't require too much physical activity – even after a decade and a half, her knee could only take so much pressure before she'd end up back in the hospital.

Two girlish shrieks were then heard and suddenly Quinn found herself wrapped in an almost-suffocating embrace. When the perpetrators finally drew back, she broke into a smile. "Kurt! Mercedes! God, it's so good to see you! Guys, this is Summer."

As the formalities were exchanged, Quinn took the moment to study her old friends, evaluating how much they'd changed in the thirteen years since graduation. Mercedes hadn't changed much; a few lines around her eyes, but other than that still looked in her prime. Her style had changed quite a bit, no longer as flashy, but she was still extremely fashionable compared to the average passerby. She'd gone to nursing school after graduation and now worked at a hospital in Chicago. Kurt, on the other hand, had taken a path that had been surprising even to him. As a last-minute decision, Kurt had decided on going to police academy, and eventually graduated the top of his class. He'd gone on to the FBI, of all things, and now lived in D.C. Quinn briefly remembered him saying something along the lines of it making him feel like he was doing something important in one of his emails. His flamboyance-with-a-stylish-flare act was apparently gone; he was dressed in a simple, professional-looking suit and tie that, while not Armani or McQueen, fit him perfectly. He'd filled out since then, gained a respectable amount of muscle that he attributed to the "rigorous FBI training routes that include, but aren't limited to, crawling through mud pits, dodging barbed wire, and climbing thirteen-foot riggings."

Quinn broke into another smile when she saw Artie wheeling toward the group. She leaned down and gave him a tight hug, letting Summer introduce herself. Artie was now running a nationwide program that promoted the musical education of children in situations such as his own, and the gleeks had followed his story on the news whenever he was too busy to send an email. Artie laughed when Kurt happily greeted him, overjoyed that the sweater vests had finally disappeared. Brittany, who had been standing with Kurt for most of the time, then asked if Kurt really burned them, since that's what he'd told her earlier.

They were soon joined by Rachel and Mike, and they all fell into an easygoing small talk that befit a group of old friends from high school until Artie asked Mike if Matt was going to show up. Mike shrugged unhappily and said that Matt had a show tour he couldn't get away from. Somehow, Matt had made it big time in the music industry as a rapper, but he'd lost contact with them all except for Mike, and even with his oldest friend the emails were scarce.

Noah didn't arrive until it was time for the gathered people to take their seats. Slightly rushed, Noah gave Summer a kiss on the temple, said hi to the gleeks he'd not seen in the last ten years, and sat in the same row as the entire group.

As Principal Pillsbury (even after five years, it was still weird for Quinn to think of Emma as her boss rather than her guidance counselor) took the stand and began her opening speech, welcoming back all the survivors, Quinn reached over and took Noah's hand. And for a single, blissful moment, they were a club again, with no thirteen-year gap to fill, none of their past dramas and animosities. For a single moment before they would once again part ways, they were innocent.


End file.
